Motorsport News Issue 232- May 29-June 12, 2002

GIBSON: V8 CHANGES NEEDED

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■ INDY 500 ■ DARWIN V8s ■ FAMOUS FI ‘FIXES’

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Kotorsport race coverage

38 Thanks for coming TWR crush all In their path at Hidden Valley 4-8 Mac Attack Ferrari meet their match as Coulthard puts McLaren back onto the top of the podium at Monaco S6 Back to back Controversy reigns as Castroneves defends his 2001 Indy 500 success CHANCLS NtXPU>

Take my win, please Disqualifications boost Sainz [iLacaL-feLLaiS 60 from third to first in the Argentina Rally ^

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Photos: Cover: Marsh/BOTHWELL, Dirk Klynsmilh. n Contents: Sutton-lmages. i S;ftipft Dirk Klynsmilh, Marsh/BOTHWELL

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20 Motorcycles 69 Speedway

62 Rallying 70 Histories

64 NASCAR

66 Drag Racing

72 National Scene

76 Marketplace

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The En-FORD-a Deal to switch camps is done, says pretty much everyone - except Rusty

by PHIL BRANAGAN RUSSELL Ingall will drive a Ford Falcon in 2003- and beyond.

Motorsport News understands that, despite claims that “nothing is finalised,” the Enforcer wiU end his seven-year association with Holden and has already agreed terms, if not actually signed a contract, with the Ford Motor Company for a three-year deal.

Aware that the company wiU be losing Ingall, Holden management is reputedly making plans for the future, tailored around Ingall driving for Ford.

As would be expected. Ingall denies that therd is any deal done; “There is still an pption with Holden teams but, at the end of the day, it’s a matter of what is best for Russell Ingall,” he said.

“In fact, I have a meeting (with Holden)in two week’s time ...”

But, while rehable MN sources are confirming that the deal(said to be worth about $1.5m for three years) is done,it is yet to be decided which Ford team wfil gain

the services of the two-time Bathurst winner.

Ingall, like Marcos Ambrose and Craig Lowndes, will be contracted directly to Ford and a decision as to where he will drive will be taken

by Ford once factors, such as the future of00 Motorsport, are settled.

Some media are speculating that Ingall is destined for John Briggs’ CAT Ford team, said to be a

favoured choice of Ford Racing boss Howard Marsden. However, Marsden is also reported to have virtually confirmed his retirement at the end of this year and there are other serious options.

With the future of 00 Motorsport in a state offlux following the potential involvement of the British-based Prodrive organisation, a final driving line¬

up for the 2003 V8 Supercar season is yet to be settled.

With Neil Crompton on a single year deal. Ingall could well end up partnering Lowndes in a Prodriveowned 00 Motorsport ‘Superteam’indeed MN can reveal that Ford made a serious bid last year to / snatch Ingall for 2002.

Midway through 2001,former team boss Fred Gibson was asked

Gibbo calls for V8 change FORMER V8 Supercar team owner Fred Gibson has called for changes to the composition of the TEGA Board and criticised the demise of 'prequalifying'.

Gibson, who late last year was elbowed out of the team which formerly bore his name, believes that a board comprised completely of team owners cannot work, as it is difficult for board members to avoid decision-making that doesn't suit their particular team's needs.

In a frank interview with MN (see page 32), Gibson has called for the introduction of independent business people to make up the majority of the TEGA Board: "Sure, have a Ford and Holden team representative, but with other completely independent people making up the majority," he said.

"CART went through this - a board made up of team owners - and nearly died. They've made changes and it'll probably now survive."

4

At the same time, Gibson criticised the move to abandon any form of prequalifying for 'v'8 Supercar events suggesting that the V8 franchise system is now being used to protect grid spots for drivers who may not qualify in an open-slather contest: "We're going to end up with what amounts to a closed shop in terms of the ability to be part of the V8 Supercar championship and where it's going to be impossible for new young drivers and their teams to be part of it," Gibson told MN. He advocates a system where all cars wishing to compete get the chance on the Friday of V8 meetings, with the best cars, making up the track capacity, progressing to the weekend's event: "You have to go back to the concept of everyone having the right to try and qualify on Friday for the main event. If you miss out, you miss out," he said.

The ever-controversial Gibson told MN "I guess I'll upset some people with those views, but someone's got to say it!"

- CHRIS LAMBDEN

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Grid capacities confirmed TRACK capacities for the remaining V8 Supercar rounds have been confirmed by the TEGA Board.

They are: Canberra 34, Barbagallo 32, Oran Park 36, Winton 36, Queensland Raceway 36, Bathurst 42, Indy 300 32. Pukekohe 32, Sandown 36. Entry will be determined by cumulative championship points (by car), while cars committed to the full series will take precedence.

Ford’s newest face: Ingall will swap The General’s red for the Blue Oval from 2003 onwards. The

n TWR chief Jeff Grech has been forced to stand down as a potential member of TEGA's new Technical Committee after a board decision that board members (of which Grech is one) cannot also serve on the Tech Committee. The rest of the Tech Committee has been confirmed: Larry Perkins, Paul Morris, Mark Larkham, Jimmy Stone and Glen Seton.

only question is, which team will get The Enforcer’s services?

(Photos by Dirk Klynsmith and John Morris/Mpix)

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n A testing programme is to be finalised shortly for later in the year to compare and adjust the aerodynamics of the new Commodore VX-replacement and the all-new Falcon AW.

by Ford CEO Geoff Polites to prepare a budget for a third Gibson Motorpsort Falcon for 2002,for Ingall, but the attempt was thwarted by Ingall’s tight contract with Team Castrol

n Tenders for the V8 Supercar control ECU are to be sent to interested parties next week.

Perkins and Ingall’s Castrol commitments.

Another feasible option sees existing Ford signee Ambrose moving to 00 to pair with Lowndes, with Ingall taking the spot at Stone Brothers Racing. And there is, of course, the Shell team.

Nothing, it seems, will be settled until the future of 00 Motorsport is clarified. However Ingall has, we hear, bought a block of land in Brisbane.

Ford is said to have been keen on signing Ingall not just for its racing effort but to include him in

its campaign for the new Falcon, codenamed ‘Barra’, which is due to hit the market in October and which, in line with AVESCO policy, will be raced in the category next season.

The concept is said to have involved Lowndds and Ingall in a ‘Good Cop - Bad Cop’ promotional pairing - nice guy Lowndes fronting the sedan marketing; the Enforcer targeting the ute brigadel

Ingall says that his options include Holden teams other than Castrol Perkins, though it is hard to see where he might fit. Jason Bargwanna and Garth Tander are due to discuss their contracts with GRM soon, while Jason Bright is also out of contract after this

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n The 'share a pit boom' philosophy for single car teams, pioneered at Darwin, is to remain for the rest of the year (Bathurst is a likely exception). n Konica series competitors are to meet with AVESCO officials at the Oran Park round to discuss ideas for

season with HRT. Kmart Racing could he an option, long-time Ingall sponsor Castrol having existing links with the team.

next year's series.

MAIMNIE FOLD: THE ULTIMATE TRACKSIDE FAN-BOY N?vi/>,PEMf(?TTqP CoV? So We Sovp ncl vloii^e A4P>AoVePlrlTEmATe..., .

n TEGA's Steering Committee, formed to look into the group's constitution and other matters, consists of Terry Morris, Bob Forbes, Bruce Ellery and Steve Reed.

By Allan Schofield

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GRM, Romano plan action GARRY Rogers Motorsport has threatened to launch legal action against AVESCO/TEGA, following the CAMS decision to reverse the result from the Clipsal 500 in March.

The revised results drop Garth Tander from second to sixth place, with the associated loss of points.

Tander was erroneously awarded an extra lap during the race after becoming caught in the ‘wrong’ position behind the Safety Car. Rogers has served notice on AVESCO/TEGA of his intention to reinforce the organisation’s contractual obligation to administer the rules “fairly and without discrimination”, which he believes did not occur as CAMS did not have the authority to deliver rulings that affected the outcome of the race.

According to Rogers, the Stewards had initially rescinded their Notice to conduct an Inquiry after the GRM Team Owner made representations to clarify the rules.

Larry Perkins appealed that decision to the V8 Supercar National Court of Appeal, before withdrawing his appeal after arrangements were made for CAMS to conduct a separate investigation into the matter.

“Clearly, they were following a course that was outside the rules set out in the AVESCO Operations Manual which specifically disadvantaged my team,” Rogers said.

“I have consistently been an advocate of resolving our differences within the rules and without recourse to legal proceedings, however I am totally frustrated and incensed at the ‘Keystone Cops’ antics adopted by our governing body, some or other of the Team Owners, and CAMS.” Meanwhile, Bap Romano has announced that he, too, will be calling his lawyers after being “totally dissatisfied” with Paul Romano’s Tiibunal Hearing last week.

“At the reconvened hearing, the Ti-ibunal chose to allow some further evidence, but then chose to disallow further evidence from us on technical matters including telemetry data and evidence from witnesses. We believe that further evidence is conclusive of mechanical failure and Paul’s innocence.”

Romano was called to explain his actions following an incident with Rodney Forbes at Philip Island in April.

Le Quai-mart KRTgrabs Yvan Muller

TWR Racing will complete its endurance driving line-up this week with the announcement that Yvan S Muller will drive for Kmart Racing at the Queensland 500 and the Bathurst 1000.

The Frenchman, right, who drove for the Holden Racing Team at Bathurst in 2000, signed a contract last week and will partner fellow BTCC driver Andy Priaulx in the second KRT entry alongside the Greg Murphy/Todd Kelly Commodore.

Muller, who is currently co-leader of the BTCC, is expected to take part in a two-day TWR test at Winton prior to the Queensland race, which is scheduled for September 15.

- PHIL BRANAGAN 6

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Le Mans t

FIA report could lead to cancelk

by JOE SAWARD

THE Automobile de I’Ouest, the organisers of the Le Mans 24 Hoin-s, must decide in the next few days whether or not the classic French endurance race can go ahead as planned on June 15-16 following the publication of a report by the FIA that there are serious aerodynamic problems with the current sports cars and sports prototypes.

The problem - discovered in a research progi'am funded by the new FIA Foundation - is that the current generation of cars have been found to have a tendency to flip if they have a yaw angle of more than 30-degi'ees and are travelling faster than 95mph. The yaw angle is the angle of the airflow relative to the direction in which the car is travelling. Sports cars normally run with yaw angles less than 10-degrees so there is only a problem if the didver loses control of the car and its starts to spin.

The research was initiated last year after the death of Michele Alboreto in a testing accident at the Lausitzring. This year there have been two other incidents where a similar effect has been seen: one of them killed GrandAm driver Jeff Clinton at the Homestead Miami Speedway but the other, in testing at Paul Ricard, did not result in any injury to Bentley driver Eric Van de Poele.

The phenomenon that the FIA has discovered has been confirmed by two separate windtunnel investigations, one by a manufacturer and the other by FIA engineers in the Imperial College windtunnel in London. It is a completely different problem to the one suffered by Mercedes-Benz at Le Mans in 1999. Following those incidents, the FLA instigated changes to the Sports Car Technical Regulations and the problem was solved.

Further research is now being done to eliminate the phenomenon but, pending the results of that, the FIA has advised all teams and race organisers that extra precautions are needed and has decreed that organisers ensure that all spectators are sufficiently far from the circuit at any given point to be in no danger from an airborne car.

They should also ensure that all race personnel are properly protected and, if necessary, should take measures to slow the cars down in sections of the circuit where a car might become airborne.

The federation also informed teams that they should reinforce the roll-over structm-es of the cars so that they conform to the rules which are due to be introduced at the start of next year.

The problem for Le Mans is that cars run at high speeds on most of the racing circuit, but specifically on the start-finish straight, where motorsport news

NEWS

500 miles9 no f^GSuit disputed at Indianapolis

hreat

'at/on of24 Hours the crowds are still quite close to the track. It was on this section of road that in 1955 motor racing suffered its worst ever accident when ‘Pierre Levegh’ran into the back oLan Austin Healey being driven by Lance Macklin and was launched over the barriers and disintegi-ated in a public enclosure.

More than 80 people, including Levegh, were killed and the accident resulted in huge implications for the sport around the world,including a ban on motor racing in Switzerland and the demise of many of the classic road racing courses.

In the longer term the discovenes will probably result in the early revamping of the sport car regulations. This was planned to take place for 2004 to bring all the different series together but this process will probably now have to be accelerated.

The annormcement also shows the value of the FLA Foundation, established last year to carry out research progi-ams in any area related to the automobile. The funding of the Foundation came from the leasing of the commercial rights for 100 years and the research shows that the sport can get some value out of the Foundation in the years ahead.

The Foundation is understood to be funding another reseai’ch program at the moment into how to improve the effectiveness of wheel tethers in Formula 1 racing.

29 Ma» 2002

HELIO Castroneves won his second straight Indianapolis 500 last Sunday hut the residt may yet he overturned.

As Motorsport News closed to press, Indy Racing League officials were considering a protest lodged by runner-up Paul Ti’acy. The Canadian insisting he had passed Castroneves before a yellow flag was displayed after an accident on the 199th lap, whereas the Brazilian maintains that he was in front when his in-car yellow light, triggered by officials, lit up.

Indy Racing League officials met until 8:40pm, almost six hours after the race ended.

“There’s just no evidence worthy of overturning our original decision,” said Brian Barnhart, VP of Operations for the IRL. “We’re going to protest, unfortunately or fortunately, I have no evidence that we shouldn’t,” said Barry Green, Ti-acy’s Australian-born team owner.“We have footage, we have driver statements. We have IRL timing and scoring data.

“My team, they worked their butts off this month. I owe it to my team and my sponsor.”

Castroneves was on an economy run after Team Penske elected not to pit him during a yellow late in the race. The lap 199 yellow was prompted by an incident iirvolving Laurent Redon and Buddy Lazier.

“What is just is just,” Castroneves said. “I don’t feel sori-y for Paul Tracy, but I’d probably do the same thing if I was in his shoes.”

There is a discrepancy between rules in the IRL and CART series.

In the IRL, racing ceases the moment the caution lights are flash around the track, whereas in CART oval racing, drivers can race to the finish line before slowing and holding position.

A point of contention is exactly when officials activated the car’s yellow lights, as Tracy was in the process of moving to the outside of Castroneves’s car at the time. The IRL initially ruled Castroneves was leading at the time.

The Brazilian was in the process of his now-famous ‘Spiderman’fence-climbing celebration when he was told of the dispute.

“I believe it,” said Castroneves, the first back-to-back winner of the 500 since A1 Unser Sr did it in 1970-71. “It’s true. Let’s celebrate.”

Ironically, the disputed finish was the first at Indy in seven years since 1995, when Scott Goodyear was penalised for passing the pace car at a late-race restart. On that occasion, his disqualification stood and fellow Canadian Jacques Villeneuve - dilving for Barry Gi'een - won the race.

n The broadcast of last November's Pukekohe V8 Supercar championship round has won Best Sports Broadcast in NZ's equivalent of the Logies. n Latest rumour to appear about the long-awaited Holden Monaro Nations Cup contender being built at Garry Rogers Motorsport is that there could be sponsorship from a major player in the video game console war. No word on which brand it might be yet, be we would punt on the Box being marked with an 'X'. n Craig Lowndes has picked up a personal sponsorship deal with Autobarn, the national chain of automotive retailers. We cannot help wondering whether they stock '00' branded nappies, and Lowndes and wife Natalie are expecting their first little Lowndes in December. n Rod Wilson will wear Selleys colours in coming rounds of the Nations Cup. Wilson's Prancing Horse Ferrari will carry signage from the maker's new Power Tape but we can't help think that it might look better on a Ford Nations Cup car; surely you have heard of Mustang Selley? n Lansvale Racing Team has announced that current V8 Brute front-runner Warren Luff will join Cameron McConville in the team's Commodore for the Vip Pet Foods 500 and Bob Jane T-Marts 1000 at Bathurst. n Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin has confirmed that her Labor government would honour the existing contact with AVESCO for a round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series at Hidden Valley, which expires in 2007. n There's a big list of Aussies in Germany this weekend for the Nurburgring 24 Hour. The event, which will see 210 cars take on the 25km layout, is the event PROCAR CEO Ross Palmer has modelled the Bathurst 24 Hour on. Palmer will drive a BMW M3 with Peter Floyd, Peter Boylan and Kiwi Kevin Bell.

Other Aussies include the Alfa Romeo 156 team of John Cowley, Maher Algadri, Melinda Price and Ross Zampatti, while Ric Shaw, Jamie Miller, Warwick Rooklyn and Kosi Kalaitzidis will team up in a Group A Honda Civic.

Big Gulper: Tracy has protested the Indy 500 results.

(Phoiosysuiion-imagos)

H Formula Renault flyer Will Davison has completed a test at Snetterton prior to this weekend's round of the British championship at Silverstone. The Motaworld driver, who finished third in the last round at Thruxton, was 11th fastest, eighttenths off Jamie Green, who was fastest.

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Coulthai* They’re breeding! Dixon will join Bruno Junqueira and Kenny Brack.

(Photo by Bob Potts)

Dixon to EXPECT Scott Dixon to be in different colours this weekend at Milwaukee when the FedEx Championship Series continues, and, indeed,for the rest of the season.

The Kiwi will run a third Target/Ganassi Racing Lola/Toyota, after serious funding issues have crippled his regular PWR Championship Racing outfit. Last week the team announced it had cut driver Oriol Servia due to a lack of funds, though the Spaniard looks like he’ll keep his seat(see page 16), with Toyota assisting Dixon to move to ‘team red’.

It’s all to do with CART ensuring that it has a 20-car field, a stipulation it has in contracts with many of the circuits it visits during the season.

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Stegbar backs Canberra

THE Canberra 400 will now be known as the Stegbar 400, foUowing the announcement that the building products manufacturer has signed on for this year, wth an option for further involvement.

“One of the most encouraging aspects of this new agreement is that this sponsor is new to motor sport at this level and dipping their toe in the water for the first time,” said IMG’s manager of motor sports, Geoff Jones.

Stegbar’s previous involvement in V8 racing has been limited to minor backing for Marcos Ambrose, who was on-hand in Canberra last week for the announcement.

'The Stegbar 400 is the next round of the V8 Supercar Series and will be run on June 7-9.

8

Octagon takes over 5i

OCTAGON has added the VIP Petfoods Queensland 500 to its list of Australian motorsport activities, being recently announced as the new promoter of the event.

Other motorsport events in Octagon's Australian motorsport stable are the Targa Tasmania tarmac rally, the Trading Post Grand Prix Rally in Victoria, and the Australian Safari international cross-country rally through NSW. Octagon’s General Manager of Motorsport in Australia, Craig Fletcher, said the move into V8 Supercars was part of the company’s global motorsport growth, adding to a list of properties which include the British Formula One Grand Prix and the World Superbike Championship.

“V8 Supercars is one of the fastest growing sports in Australia, and Octagon views this new involvement with the category as a major step fonvard,” said Fletcher.

“We look forward to working with AVESCO and to continue to assess additional motorsport opportunities into the future.”

BRAZILIAN F1 rookie Felipe Massa attracted the ire of several of his colleagues with some careless driving at Monaco. ^ The Sauber driver got in the way of a number of drivers late in qualifying, then blotted his record further by shunting Enrique Bernoldi's Arrows (which had just passed him) off at turn one midway through the GP, taking himself out, above.

Among those affected by motorsport news

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Perkins appoints ex-Fl team manager

More Formula 1 experience: Jim Vale worked for Jordan in F1, Larry Perkins drove in F1. But don’t expect Larry to go aii European on us now ...

(Photo by Dirk Kiynsmith)

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m Massa’s tardiness was Mark Webber, who lost a qualifying lap which would most likely have catapulted his Minardi four or five spots up the grid into new territory for the little team, “We were shafted big time by him,” said an angry Webber afterwards.

“I came out for my final run right at the end of the session when the track was at its quickest but also at its busiest. I was already two tenths of a 29 May 2002

second up on my first sector time when I came across Massa who was on his slow down lap.

“I know this is Monaco but what he did to me and other drivers was brainless.”

In the race, Massa received a Stop-Go after crunching into the rear of Bernoldi and propelling the 'united pair' of cars up the escape road at Ste Devote. "! braked too late,” he said.

Really...

by CHRIS LAMBDEN KIWI Formula Ford star Fabian Coulthard has tested with the Castrol Perkins team.

LP confirmed this week that the youngster had run 30 laps in a Castrol Commodore at Winton last week.

“He drove well; did everything I expected of him. He’ll have another run with us at some stage,” he reported.

Perkins still has a seat to fiU for the endurance events later in the year, but said that the test shouldn’t be taken as a sign that Coulthard would get the gig.

“It’s an option,” Perkins said, “but we haven’t decided what we’re doing in that regard yet.”

At the same time, Perkins confirmed that former Jordan FI team manager Jim Vale has started work as team manager at Castrol Perkins Racing.

The long-serving Jordan man returned to Australia late last year, planning to take up a role with the then Gibson Motorsport, but with Fred Gibson’s departure from the team went his prospective employment.

Intriguingly, Perkins placed the sourcing of a team manager (replacing the departed Andrew Reid)in the hands of a professional head-hunting organisation and Vale went through the full process to get the job!

“I’m delighted to have got the services of someone with just the right sort of experience for the job,” LP said on Monday.

“Jim will fit in here just fine.”

And finally, Perkins has confirmed that, in order to help TEGA overcome an oversubscribed track capacity for the Perth round he will, for the first time in 10 years, miss a V8 race.

NEWS n The Monaco Grand Prix was a great event for Formula 1 but there was a slight cloud-over the event in the evening when it was found that there was a problem with "a programmable device" on Jarno Trulli's Renault.

The problem seems to be related to a missing paper seal on Trulli's electronic box. This is unfortunate because it means that the FIA must now check to see if the software "lock" (a 12 character code known only to the FIA) is still in place.

There are several billion possibilities for such a code and it is unlikely that this could have been broken and the software tampered with. However, this needs to be checked and so the result of Monaco (below the top three) remains provisional.

A similar problem occurred with Mika Hakkinen in Austria in 2000.

Checks revealed that there had been no tampering with Hakkinen's software but McLaren was docked 10 points in the Constructors' Championship and fined $100,000.

Hakkinen, however, kept his points as the FIA felt it was not his fault. n Indy legend Andy Granatelli was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's Hall of Fame last week. The 79-year-old, whose cars won at the Brickyard twice - with Mario Andretti in 1969 and Gordon Johncock in 1982 - said at the induction, "for those of you who voted for me, I really thank you. For those of you who didn't - tough luck.

I made it." n Among those to miss out on a start for the Indy 500 were Johnny HerbeW, who elected to not attempt a qualification run on Bump Day and race a Sportscar at Sears Point, Oriol Servia, Scott Harrington, Memo Gidley (who practiced Herbert's car), Jimmy Kite, Jon Herb, Billy Roe, Donnie Beechier and Robby McGehee. n CART'S FedEx Championship Series will now end in Mexico City this year. The race, originally set down for October 13, has been moved to November 17, and will become the season's final round. The extra time allows the completion of event facilities at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. California Speedway's round now becomes the penultimate round. n The first normally-aspirated Champ Car engine designed for the 2003 rules has had its first hit-out on , the dyno. Cosworth Racing's XFhybrid, from which next year's XG engine will be derived, ran without incident as its October release date gets closer. Cosworth has already stated that it would likely have the means to supply the entire CART series if it was needed to.

9

ten home of

[motorsport] vs Supercar Championship* .

●Canberra . .

●Rd 5 ,Rd 6

Jul 28 .

●Barbagallo . ●Oran Park . .

Aug 18

●Winton

,Rd 8

Sep 15

●Old Raceway

,Rd 9

Jun 9 Jun 30

Hakkinen: no dei

.Rd 7

Konica VS Series* Jun 16 . . . .Oran Park

Rd 3

Jul 7

●Winton

Rd 4

Aug 4

Mallala

Oct 12

Bathurst

Rd 5 .(non Championship)

FIA Formula One World Championship Montreal

Jun 9

●Rd8 ●Rd9

Jun 23 . . . .Nurburgring , ●Silverstone .

Jul 7

,Rd 10

Jul 21 . . . .Magny Cours Jul 28 . . . .Hockenhelm

● Rd 12

●Rd 11

CART FedE^^Championship* Jun 2 ●Milwaukee .> ●Rd 4 Jun 9

●Montreal . . .

.Rd 5

Jun 16 . . . .Portland

.Rd6

Jun 30 . . . .Chicago

,Rd7

Jun 2

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Hugo Boss: Mika, Hugo and Erja Hakkinen face the media at Monaco iast weekend.

(Photo by Sutton-lmages)

MotoGP Motorcycle Championship* . . . .Rd5 Italy

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Jun 16 Jun 29

Catalunya .

Assen . . . .

,Rd6

Jul 14

Donnington

●Rd8

● Rd7

SBK World Super Bike Championship* ● Rd7 Jun 9 . . . .Lausitzring Jun 23 . . . .MIsano -

●Rd8

Jul 14 . . . .Laguna Seca Jul 28 . . . .Brands Hatch

●Rd 10

Nations Cup . . . .Canberra . . . .

Jun 9 Jun 23

Winton

Jul 14 . . . .Qld Raceway .

Aug 11

. . .Wakefield Park

■ Rd9

.RdS .Rd 6 .Rd7

● Rd 8

Aug 8-11 . .Finland .

,Rd 9

Aug 22-25 .Germany

,Rd 10

Australian Rally Championship* .Rd3

Jun15-16 , .Queensland Jul 13-14 . .Adelaide . .

,Rd4

Aug 10-11 .Tasmania .

,Rd5

Sep 7-8 . . .Melbourne .

●Rd6

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1 ten A home of motorsporf M oveni dates in this calendar were correct at the time ot printing. Please consult any Individual tracks and/or associations for dale changes.

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,Rd4

World Rally Championship* ● Rd 7

Jun13-16 . .Acropolis Jul 11-14 . .Safari . .

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Series or evonte totocmit on Netv/ork Ton are marked with an nstoriak. Check your local guidoG for acrooning details.

CART drivers Toranosuke Takagi and Cristiano da Matta both tested for the Toyota FI team at Paid Ricard last week, each driving completing 100 laps of the circuit.

Toyota said that the tests were based on a desire to “bring together the corporation’s worldwide motorsport activities”.

Takagi has already had his chance in FI, competing without any particular distinction, but da Matta, who is particularly effective on road courses, is still hopeful of an FI career in the future.

Both diivers completed around 100 laps of the French track, da Matta all but matching the times set by team regular Mika Salo.

Both drivers were around 2s faster than Takagi.

-JOESAWARD

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A.shley Stichbury 1\ MOTORSPORT News is saddened to report the sudden death of NZ V8 Touring Car Champion Ashley Stichbury.

The likeable 30 year-old died on May 17 as the result of a massive brain haemorrhage. Among the Australian-based racers to attend the funeral, at his home town of Havelock North, were kiwis Greg Murphy, Paul Radisich and Craig Baird.

Stichbury came out of the same East Coast North Island karting clique as Murph in the mid-80s before diving into Formula Ford in the 1991/92 NZ series, finishing second.

After a stint helping to run Alex Wurz in the German F/Ford championship, Stichbury returned

home to win the 92/93 NZ

championship, backing up the following year.

Best known for his recent performances in H-aNZam and most recently NZ’s V8 Touring Cars, Stichbury co-drove with Paul Monis in last year’s long distance V8 races.

According to Murph, nearly 1500 people turned up in Havelock North to pay their respects, with motor sport fnends from as far away as the US on hand.

MN extends its condolences to Ashley’s wife Anna and their eight month-old son Zac. motorsport nows

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NEWS

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Bernie plans bold future

by QUENTIN SPURRING/MN

THERE was much talk in the paddock at Monaco about suggestions of how the Grand Prix racing should react to the current economic problems caused by the recession.

Bernie Ecclestone let it be known that he is keen for the automobile manufacturers to agree to supply more than one team with engines - and even to let teams supply cars to customer teams.

"Once Ferrari and Mercedes, for example, have spent all the money in research and development, testing and building their cars, it is not much more expensive to produce extra cars," Ecclestone said, "That would allow some people to make a financial arrangement to run those cars. The advantages to them are obvious."

Ecclestone also suggested that he is in support of a proposed Manufacturers' Championship which would count the scores of four cars rather than the current two.

This would provide the automobile companies with an incentive to expand their F1 operations for minimal costs.

IT is not like Mika Hakkinen could avoid visiting his first Grand Prix since taking time out: he lives in Monaco.

Accompanied hy wife Erja and infant son Hugo, McLaren’s 1998-’99 World Champion, who says he is taking a one-year sabbatical from the sport, toured the paddock on Thursday but remained guarded over his future.

“I have a few weeks before I need to make the decision about a return,” he said.“At the moment !enjoy spending time with my family and not having to worry so much about my fitness - but I do miss winning and working with all the people in the team.

Should Hakkinen decide on ^returning to the scene,though, the question remains as to what McLaren would do to accommodate the Finn.

With David Coulthard taking his 12th career victory in the Principality, and the impressively consistent speed shown by Kimi Raikkonen this season,even if Mika does decide to come back to the sport it is not a foregone conclusion that he could rejoin his old team.

And, with the seats in the other top teams, Ferrari and Williams, already settled for 2003, where would Mika go?

971-2002

The proposal was part of a package that was circulated to the FI teams last week by FIA President Max Mosley. This is a closely-guarded secret but we believe that it also included a scheme to cut testing (similar to the idea we reported several months ago) which calls for teams that do not test to be given extra testing at races. We hear that, under Mosley's proposals, teams would have to decide whether or not they will test between February and November. If they decide not to do so, they will be given an extra two hour session on the Friday of each Grand Prix and there would be no limit on the number of cars and drivers they could run. They would then have to fit one engine from Saturday morning onwards.

The danger of the ideas are that the smaller teams would in effect lose their political voice, as they would become dependent on the bigger teams for the supply of machinery.

However as several teams say they are in danger of going out of business at the moment they are happy to agree to the new ideas.

JOE SAWARD

l-ookingfor cosmetic help? liernic ErcU’sioiic's pUmsfor the fiiliiir limy sec iciiiiis share engines, like the example ol Arrines. hehnw and .lagiiar. n-ldeh share a Cosworlh. as well as chassis.

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n FIA President Max Mosley has written to Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel to apologise for any embarrassment caused by the thousands of fans in the grandstands at the A1 Ring booing Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello at tne end of the recent Austrian GP. No politician likes to be seen on global television being whistled at by his own electorate and Mosley told the Reuters newsagency that he felt that he had to make a gesture because it "obviously was a disagreeable situation for him to oe in." n According to our spies, there were major players from a number of big US companies in Monaco over the weekend, with the names of Citibank, Johnson & Johnson and WalMart all being bandied around by marketing types in the paddock. Certainly, there is more interest than in FI from America tnan there has been since the days wnen Mario Andretti was a front running FI driver in the late 1970s. The fact that there is a big effort going on to find an American driver for Formula, 1 indicates just how important FI sees the United States to be in the years anead. n Former Grand Prix driver and multiple Le Mans 24 Flours winner JacKy Ickx has been the Clerk of the Course for tne Monaco Grand Prix for 20 years and recently he was recognised for this work by the Monaco Government which made him an Officer in tne Order of Saint Charles.

Ickx was presented with his award recently by Michel Boeri, the president of the Automobile Club de Monaco. n The FIA has issued a statement that bans screens, covers and other obstructions Which in any way obscure any part of the car in the pitlane or the garages unless express permission is given by the FIA Safety Delegate. The ban has been introduced on the grounds of safety because, the federation argues, the screens get in the way of escape routes and access to the pits for emergency services.

Although it is being assumed that the ban is only for Monaco, the actual statement issued refers only to the 2002 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, which presumably means that the screens will be banned at other races as well.

H Alistair Watkins has been appointed the corporate marketing director of British American Racing.

The former FIA Media Delegate has spent the last few years getting an MBA and then working for the Kirch empire but has now moved back into Formula 1 as part of the new marketing team under David Richards.

Previously an Army officer who saw service with the Coldstream Guards in the Gulf War and in Northern Ireland, Watkins is the son of FI doctor Professor Sid Watkins.

-JOE SAWARD 11

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/ Feeling fuelish: The F3 fuel cell problem has been fixed."(PhoiobyjohnMorns/Mpix)

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Previously, F3 car owners were expected to return their cells to the manufacturer in Europe for testing and re certification. Prior to Oran Park, several competitors had sent their cells to Australian Fuel Cells for testing, only to have the test result declared void due to the company not having the correct accreditation. The cars were subsequently not allowed to race.

All Australian F3 cars will how meet the FIA fuel cell standard, including the older Group 2 cars which were previously exempt.

Owners of the cars have until the start of 2003 to comply with the new rules.

- MARK GLENDENNING

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F3 fuel cells sorted

THE fuel cell controversy that stopped nine Formula 3 cars from taking to the track at Oran Park earlier this month has been solved.

CAMS havexeccepted a plan proposed by the Australian Formula 3 Association for a local company, Queensland-based Australian Fuel Cells, to be approved by CAMS and the FIA as an authorised supplier and tester of FT3-standard fuel cells.

After passing the final test procedures, the corhpany received its official FIA endorsement last week.

Competitors will now be able to purchase locally-made cells, representing a substantial reduction in c'osts.

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IT appears certain that there will be no Young Guns race at the Honda Indy 300 this year.

The race, held for younger drivers in identical Honda Integras in the past two years, looks like being omitted from the program for the combined CART/V8 Supercar event in late October. Gillette, which

sponsored the races in the past, has transferred its sponsorship to the V8 Supercar races, which will be rounds of the Championship for the first time.

Honda had 10 of its new model Integra Type Rs prepared for the race last year, but MN has been told

CART Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Steve Olvey.

“With rare exception, our drivers are able to walk away from the vast majority of accidents. Rather than potentially going backwai’d, our medical department is happy to

not be sacrificing any of the safety that we currently enjoy.”

The series will change to cater for the new 3.5-litre normally aspirated engines to be introduced next season.

-PHIL MORRIS

CART Board confirms freeze

CART’S Board of Directors has confirmed that it would be fi’eezing its current chassis rules for next year, “in order to reduce costs and maintain safety standards.”

In ratifying the decision announced last month at the FedEx Championship race at Motegi, CART also announced that agreement has been reached with Lola Cars to continue to manufacture chassis in 2003 and beyond. But there is also the chance that another new, and unnamed, manufacturer could enter the series.

“We’ve spoken with several chassis manufactui’ers, and as we have always done at CART, we are committed to an open market for 2003 and beyond,” said CART Vice President of Racing Operations John Lopes.

“We are still talking with other mamifactm'ers, but we are pleased that Lola has already committed to returning to CART in 2003.”

Regardless of whether the series becomes a de facto control chassis class or another marque enters the fray, safety will continue to be of 12

paramount importance.

“The current (CART) chassis has proven itself to be exceptionally safe on all types of courses, as evidenced most recently by Townsepd Bell’s tremendous crash at the Twin Ring Motegi oval,” said

t

niotorsport news

NEWS Photo by Dirk Klynsmith

James to test Jag J

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JAMES Courtney will have his first test in Jaguar's R3 FI car at Silverstone this week.

The Aussie, currently leading the British F3 championship after three straight wins, will have his first run in the car tomorrow (Thursday) before switching back to his Carlin Motorsport Dallara Mugen-Honda for this weekend's round of the F3 championship.

"It's going to be a bit weird getting out of the FI and straight into the F3 at the same circuit," says Courtney in his column on page 23.

We think that he means that the F3 will feel a little slow after driving the FI car but, after the way the Jags went at Monaco last weekend, below, maybe it won't...

I that eight of the cars have been sold and the otfief two vvill be used by the Australian distributor for promotional purposes.

The 2000 and 2001 races produced some very entertaining racing and were won, respectively, by Marcos Ambrose and Dean Canto.

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Brit FI teams look for greater control BRITISH Formula One team owners may try to take a greater role in the future of the sport, according to a report in London's Times newspaper.

The report suggested that a company called GPT Ltd is bidding to buy a majority shareholding in SLEC, the company that controls the Formula One group of companies and which holds the commercial rights to Formula 1 racing.

The Times backed up its story with quotes from GPT managing director Neil Johnson. According to him, the plan is for the GPT to win over the other FI teams (which are almost all owned by car manufacturers) in order to buy the shares in SLEC currently controlled (in effect but not in reality) by the creditor banks of the Kirch Beteiligung company.

This struggling organisation holds a 58.3 percent share in SLEC and has yet to pay for another 16.7 percent which it is committed to buy from EM.TV. Flowever these shareholdings were all used as security on huge loans from banks.

In theory, therefore, a bid from GPT Ltd to the creditor banks makes a lot of sense because the automobile manufacturers' threat to start their own World Championship in 2008 is not being taken 29 May 2002

very seriously by anyone in FI circles.

The manufacturers have been talking about starting afresh with a completely new structure called GPWC but at the same time have been rumoured to be trying to buy the SLEC shares via the Association des Constructeurs Europeens d'Automobiles (ACEA), the European federation of car manufacturers. It seems that the European car companies not involved in the sport were not interested in such a deal. Thus another vehicle would be needed if this route is to be taken: GPT could serve that purpose.

GPT Ltd is a company established less than a year ago by five Formula 1 teams: McLaren, Williams, BAR, Jordan and Arrows. The aim was a defensive one with the teams getting together to protect their own interests against bigger groups which might have wanted to exert influence in the sport.

The only problem with all of this is that when we checked with members of GPT Ltd to see if they were in agreement with what Johnson had been quoted as saying they reported (off the record) that they did not know anything about what was being said and were embarrassed by the whole business.

- JOE SAWARD

n The Monaco Grand Prix circuit is planning to make some significant changes to the race track for the race in 2003 but at the moment the full details of the work is not entirely clear although it seems that it will involve the reprofiling of several corners to improve the safety of the track - by slowing down the cars - and also to increase the chances of overtaking, something for which Monaco is not famous as with the modern FI cars passing in the narrow streets is very difficult without the cars making contact with one another. n us TV network ABC had John Watson and Ben Edwards as it two lead commentators for the Monaco Grand Prix. The duo worked together on FI broadcasts on Eurosport some years ago and were very popular with the fans. Since then Edwards has been working in CART and in British Touring Car racing. Watson has continued to be a regular FI commentator for channels all over the world. n Michael Schumacher picked up an award for International Sportsman of the Year in Monaco at the Laureus Awards, despite the outrage which followed his victory in Austria. Fie beat golfer Tiger Woods to the prize.

Away from the tracks Schumacher has not had a good week, failing once again to get permission to build his dream home in Switzerland. The multiple World Champion has been trying to get permission to built a luxury villa near an airport in German speaking Switzerland. His first plan was thrown out by the Swiss military, which refused to let him use one of their airfields for his private jet, the second has been blocked by environmentalists who do not want to see the Schumacher mansion built on top of a wooden hill. Schumacher says that he will try again somewhere else.

■ Triple World Champion and former FI team owner Sir Jackie Stewart has warned the FIA not to ban Ferrari because of the effect it will have on the British Grand Prix if the Italian team is not allowed to take part. Speaking on BBC Radio 5, Stewart said that it would be a "commercial decision of enormous magnitude" and that the attendance of the British Grand Prix would be "severely affected" if Ferrari was not allowed to race. Our sources say that the FIA was not amused by Stewart's latest outburst.

■ Hugo Boss, McLaren's longest established partner, is to have a new chief executive, with Bruno Salzer replacing Werner Baldessarini. The change is not thought likely to have any negative effect on the FI program and indeed Boss is keen to stay in FI as the sport begins to look at breaking into the Chinese market.

-JOE SAWARD 13

Alesi^ DTH Could we be about to step the Nations Cup up? There are pros and cons, but the British GTseries is the one the idea is modelled on.

(Photo by Sulton-lmages)

N-GT rules for Oz?

by AARON NOONAN PROCAR Australia is investigating the possibility of replacing the current Nations Cup regulatons with the FIA N-GT regulations for next year's championship'.

While a meeting is scheduled between PROCAR and teams and drivers at the next round of the PROCAR Championship Series in Winton on June 23, PROCAR CEO Ross Palmer is in Germany for the Nurburgring 24 Hour.

In addition to his actual racing.

Palmer is busy investigating the costs of N-GT cars - both purchase and running - and will, no doubt, have plenty of information to bring back.

Motorsport News understands that the British GT Championship is being used as a

model for any possible changes to the Australian series, whereby N-GT cars - of which there are only two homologated by the FIA, the Ferrari 360 GT and Porsche 911 GTS RS - would run as well as local cars, which have had performance changes^ made to bring them into line.

The costs of developing nonhomologated cars to N-GT specs, such as the Chrysler Viper and hidden Monaro, is one of the catching points for the plan.

Naturally, the costs of not just buying one of these N-GT cars, but also the ongoing running costs, also is a factor weighing against the introduction of the rules, as well as a 'moving of the goalposts', particularly as manufacturers such as Holden are finalising their machines for entering the current category.

Thompson sits out

A LACK of sponsorship dollars has prevented young Australian rally hopeful Mark Thompson from getting a start in the British Rally Championship.

Thompson’s managers, Slipstream in the UK,have been unable to source the appropriate funds to get the 21-year-old a start so far, despite the fact that two rounds of the British series have already been run.

It is unlikely Thompson will get a start in the near future as the promised funds are yet to materialise.

The young driver from Penrith has been working in rally preparation, including a stint at MSD where he worked on Freddy Loix’s Hyundai for the Rally Argentina.

He is currently working at Asquith Motorsport in Kent, where he is helping build the first of what will hopefully be two Renault Olios for the Slipstream Team. The first car will be used by Thompson’s team-mate Simon Hughes.

“It is very frustrating and disappointing but I am experiencing an enormous amount over here,” said Thompson.

“I wouldn’t have had the chance to work on building a World Rally Car back home. I am crewing for a Greek driver in the Peugeot Super Cup in the British Championship so I am making a lot of valuable contacts and learning an enormous amount,” - JON THOMSON 14

^UNKT

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Alfa'S Red ALFA'S Fabrizio Giovanardi, right, has continued his winning ways in the European Touring Car Championship at Brno in the Czech Republic.

Giovanardi chased down BMW driver Dirk Muller and Rickard Rydeli (Volvo S60) in race one to take the win, though he went side-by-side with the Swede through one of the chicanes and the two collided. Rydeli spun into the gravel and eventually retired.

Muller and Nicola Larini (Alfa) went past, though Giovanardi picked them off to Win, with Brit James Hanson, right with Rydeli, picking up fourth-place.

The BMWs pushed the Alfas again in race two, though Giovanardi came out on top again, taking his fifth win from six starts this season, even despite an 'inverted top six' grid.

Muller took second for BMW, clear of Larini, Jorg Muller (BMW), Hanson and Rydeli, recovering from his first race retirement. motorspoft news

NEWS

A bpeakthrough ' .M

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n Jos Verstappen has lost his court case against the Arrows Formula 1 team. The Dutch driver was released by the team shortly before the start of the 2002 season, and launched a legal action, alleging non-payment of fees relating to 2001. This week the court rejected the claim, saying that it was satisfied that Arrows had valid reasons for releasing Verstappen from his contract. n International Racing Management and John Nielsen have abandoned their project to build a new sports-prototype for the 900kg Le Mans category. Instead Piper Design, the UK motorsports engineering company that was to have built the car, says that it has taken over the project itself, with a view to entering Le Mans in 2003.

Managing director John Piper said, "Although our client was unable to pursue the development of the P01 car, we're committed to taking the

Jean-star! Alesi steered his Merc to victory at Donington, left and right, while the others scrapped among themselves. Stefan Mucke and Yves Olivier, above, introduced each other to the scenery.

Donino+on

(Photos by Sutton-lmages)

Alert

IN just his third DTM race, former Formula 1 star Jean Alesi has taken his first win in the third round of the season at Donington Park,leading home the Aht Audi duo of Christian Aht and Mattias Ekstrom.

Former British Touring Car Champion Alain Menu was looking on course to put his Opel on the podium for the first time all season, though he had to pit from second with a puncture and ended up eighth.

“I’m happy about my first win since the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix,” said Alesi.

“My starts and my good grid positions helped me to win. There were quite some fights first with Marcel(Passler) and then with Bernd (Schneider), but it was all very fair. I knew Bernd would be faster once he could overtake me so I gave it my all to stay in front.

“It’s a shame that Bernd lost the chance to fight for a top position following his two penalties.”

The defending DTM Champion Schneider started in a lowly grid position after qualifying poorly, but at least he stayed in the event.

Joachim Winkelhock stalled his Opel on the grid of the qualification race and was smacked into by Uwe Alzen, putting both out for the day.

Points leader Laurent Aiello first damaged the bodywork of his Abt-Audi TT-R in the feature I'ace and then had to come in three

29 May 2002

times for a stop and go-penalty.

Because he failed to come in for the third penalty he was disqualified after the race.

He still remains in the lead of the championship. After the Donington round, Alesi and Ekstrom are jointly second in the points standings.

Dutch driver Christijan Albers came home in fourth with the oneyear old version of the MercedesCLK from Karl Wendlinger (AbtAudi TT-R)and Fassler, who completed the top six.

Schneider, who had made up eight positions in the qualification race, had to come in for two stopand-go penalties during the main race and finished 12th.

Pole-sitter Manuel Reuter retired with a drivetrain failure following a collision, in which he got innocently involved earlier in the race.

Points; Aiello 25,Alesi/Ekstrom 16, Abt 12,Schneider 7.

project forward. We've invested a considerable amount of talent and resources into this new car and we're confident that it will be a significant and successful addition to the LMP900 grid."

The Piper is being designed by chief designer Nick Carpenter and aerodynamicist Ben Woods. n The organisers of the new Dallara Nissan World Series plan to extend the calendar and visit more circuits, outside of Spain, in 2003.

Former Formula 1 driver Ricardo Zonta won the opening race in Valencia and finished third in race two behind Franck Montagny.

The 20-strong field of 420bhp, 3litre V6 single setters was well received. Promoter Jaime Alguersuari said it was an encouraging start and gave a strong hint that other countries, in addition to Spain, Italy and France, would host races next year. n The Premierl Grand Prix promoters have surprised cynical motorsports insiders by signing up Chelsea Football Club for its projected international track racing series, which is intended to present 24 'spec' single-seaters in the colours of the world's top soccer clubs.

After its launch was postponed from its original date in July 2002, P1GP suffered another blow when Reynard Motorsport, which was to have built the VI0 powered cars, was put in receivership, A replacement supplier has not yet been named, but this week PIGP added Chelsea as a fifth partner, joining Anderlecht, Benfica, Feyenoord and Leeds United.

Operations director Robin Webb said that PIGP is "right on course" to sign up the 24 clubs it requires for its ground-breaking series, which is now scheduled to start in March 2003.

- QUENTIN SPURRING 15

IRL to Motegi in 2003 B0NJ3A

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.Double-up: The IRL will join CART in racing at Motegi in 2003. Only California Speedway hosts races for both in 2002.

(Photo by Sutton-lmages)

THE Indy Racing League has signed a three-year deal for it to have its first races outside of the United States.

Motegi’s Twin Ring oval will host the IRL for the first time next year in addition to its regular CART date.

“Now that the Indy Racing League has a stable schedule in the United States, we are pleased to take racing based on the heritage of the Indianapolis 500 to Japan,” said Tony George.

With Toyota and now Honda entering the League in 2003, the addition of a Japanese race to the calendar was only a matter of time.

Hon

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PWR Shake-up Pennzoil with Panther PENNZOIL and Panther Racing have extended their deal through to the end of the 2005 Indy Racing League season.

And at the same time, the team has confirmed that it will stay with Chevrolet power for 2003, despite the addition of Honda and Toyota to the League, “I have been involved with teams at Indianapolis since 1968, and I can say without a doubt that Pennzoil is by far the best company that I have had the opportunity to represent,” said team co-owner John Barnes.

Pennzoil joined with the Panther team in 1998 with driver Scott Goodyear, v/ho fi nished second in the 2000 championship, before current driver Sam Hornish Jr took over and won last year’s title.

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PWR Championship Racing owner Bruce McCaw pulled the plug on half of his CART team last week, leaving Oriol Servia and 30 other staff out of a job.

However, reports filtering through indicate that Servia will keep his ride for Milwaukee this weekend and team-mate Scott Dixon will be 'farmed out' to Target/Ganassi Racing for the rest of 2002, see separate story. Had Servia dropped out, then the CART field would drop to 19 cars, though the Champ Car body has contracts to supply fields of 20 cars, so the chase was on to find a suitable deal that put both drivers in rides.

Toyota, along with CART, are believed to be instrumental in pulling off tire deal, which makes Dixon a team-mate to Kenny Brack and Bruno Junqueira.

KOOL to be blue

THESE are the colours you will see Dario Franchitti in for the rest of the FedEx Championship Series, starting at Milwaukee this weekend.

The Scotsman’s Lola/Honda will now be blue and silver machine, in accordance with the different, ‘KOOL Milds’ branding on his Team Green machine.

“I’ve always thought that we had the best looking cars out on the track, and now this new scheme gives me the chance to drive another standout entiy,” he said.

Team-mate Paul Ti-acy will stay with the ‘traditional’ green and white paint scheme, largely the same scheme the team has carried since 1997, motorsport news

INDY RACING NEWS

Ida goes IRL!

by PHIL MORRIS

-1 ^OUVWOOD

DESPITE previously saying that it had no intention of heing involved with American openwheel racing in 2003, Honda has been annoimced as the fourth engine manufacturer for the Indy Racing League.

The 3.5-htre V8s will be provided

by Ilmor Engineering, who previously produced MercedesBenz engines for CART and builds Chevrolet engines currently in the IRL for various teams. Honda joins Chevrolet, Toyota and Nissan in the IRL for 2003.

“Honda’s decision to produce an IRL engine further validates the growth, stability and strength of the league, and the addition of another engine manufacturer positions the series for even more Four engines in the iRL: With Honda joining Chevrolet, Nissan and Toyota, the future is bright for the IRL. (Photo by Sutton-lmages)

growth,” said IRL President and CEO Tony George.

Honda began its Indy/Champ Car involvement in 1994 and has stayed in the CART series through to the end of this season, when it will leave.

It has signed with Ilmor for three years.

“Competing in the IRL series, with its rules to intentionally limit the use of high-cost technology and thus provide more parity in the racing field, will give Honda a new competitive experience and fans more exciting racing,” said Robert Clarke, general manager of HPD (Honda Performance Development).

Honda’s CART engine has won four CART Manufacturer’s Championships and the last six consecutive Driver’s titles.

No teams that wiU use the engine in the IRL next year have been announced, though Hondapowered CART teams, such as Team Green, would be suitable candidates for their one-off Indy 500 assaults.

i American company gets IRL deal I LOLA has been turned down in its bid to become ; the third chassis supplier to the iRL, with the League announcing that MK Racing will join Dallara : and G Force in the League in 2003.

MK Racing's principal owners are managing director ’ Michael Kranefuss and Ken Anderson, who played a n major role in designing the first G Force chassis that won the Indy 500 in the hands of Arie Luyendyk in 1997, left.

Kranefuss is the former head of special vehicle operations for the Ford Motor Company. After that, he was a NASCAR Winston Cup team owner for Geoff Brabham, John Andretti and Jeremy Mayfield.

The League has included FIA-standard testing for the 2003 chassis designs, while a new shorter gearsforward transmission is being introduced, which will enhance safety measures at the rear of the car. The shorter gearbox will allow for a more effective rear crash structure, similar to the current attenuator.

"The conservative route for the sanctioning body would be to freeze our rules because of the quality racing our promoters and fans tell us we provide," IRL vice president of operations Brian Barnhart said, "Over the past three years, which was the lifespan of this chassis, we continue to learn from all of the onboard data gathered. We are confident that Dallara, G Force and MK Racing will produce a safer race car, yet still provide the level of competition for which the league is known."

29 May 2002

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MOTORSPORT 00 Motorsport has positions available in our team for personnel experienced with V8 Supercars

FABRICATOR & ENGINE BUILDER Applicants must have had experience in V8 Supercars with engine and body shell preparation.

Both positions are predominately Workshop-based and offer excellent working conditions.

All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Applications to: GENERAL AAANAGER MOTORSPORT 1/13 KITCHEN ROAD L DANDENONG 3175 Fax: 03 9791 9533 Email: etech(»00motorsport.com II

Sportscar News Nissan takes aim at Porsche

MG to pull pin?

NISSAN is working on a race version of its new 350Z sportscar to take on Porsche's 911 GT3-RS customer car for next season.

The Renault-owned manufacturer is aiming to produce turn-key racers for sale to private teams around the world. That means the new cusotmer car is being designed at Nissan's in-house motorsport department, NISMO, to conform to the Le Mans GT class regulations and the similar N-GT.rules in the FIA GT Championship.

Take-up of third year option with Lola unlikely MG is ready to end its factory involvement in the Le Mans 24 Hours a year early after this year's running of the French endurance classic next month.

The Rover-ownedJjrand committed to two seasons at the race with British race car builder Lola Cars International, which has masterminded the programme with the EX257 'baby' prototype, below.

An option exists for a third year in 2003, but sources indicate that this is now almost certain not to be taken up.

MG's motorsport boss, Rob Oldaker, maintainted that no decision had been taken, but he conceded'that the LMP675 class project was likely to have served its purpose after this year's race.

"The 675 car was an expedient to get MG's name back in lights," he explained.

"Ohl' yoer wouldn't lmv« Mt'!

n Ex-Formula 1 driver Erik Comas _ is returning to the Le Mans 24 Flours with the ORECA Dallara team after a two-year absence.

Comas, who raced for Nissan at La Sarthe in 1997-99»has taken the final seat in the French squad's twocar squad of Dallara-Judd LMPs. n Maserati is eyeing a high-tech supercar built around Ferrari's new F60 to mount its return to motorsport sometime'in the next two years.

The Italian car builder, which is under the control of Ferrari, looks likely to opt Sportscar racing for its re-entry into the international motor racing n arena. A exotic carbon-chassis aimed at the GTS division at the Le Mans 24 Flours and FIA GT Championship is the latest route to be considered. n The FIA Sportscar Championship could open up its SR2 class to cars powered by engines from the N-GT division of the FIA GT series. The move would ensure a ready supply of cost-effective off-the-shelf powerplants. Porsche, the dominant force in N-GT, is supporting the move.

-GARY WATKINS

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worthwhile: a second year was absolutely essential."

He said that MG was "going through the options for 2003", but company insiders indicate that the likely scenario is that it will be represented next year only by customer versions of the EX257.

That could include the two factory chassis, if they can be leased or sold to a privateer squad.

Two more EX257s are in build at Lola. One has been'bought by the US privateer Bill Rand, whose Risi Competizione-run team is leading the SR2 points in Grand-Am. The second car is believed to be destined for Dyson Racing.

MG could be back at Le Mans as a factory, even if it abandons the LMP675 class. It has made no secret of its racing ambitions for the new X80 supercar.

- GARY WATKINS

Must be a clean and tidy worker, setting highest standards. Able to work with a highly motivated team.

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Brabs wins

AUSSIE David Brabham, above, has teamed with Jan Magnussen to win the Sears Point round of the American Le Mans Series.

While the dominant Audi team left its 2002 cars at home in preparation for the Le Mans 24 Hour, the Panoz duo held off the Champion Audi R8 by 0.4s, with regular drivers Johnny Herbert and Andy Wallace joined by works pilot Tom Kristensen.

“The car was really good in the wet conditions and I was able to pull away from the Audis, but when the track started to dry, our set-up was a little soft for the dry conditions,” said Brabham.

Team-mates Bryan Herta and Bill Auberlen finished third, clear of the Dyson Racing Riley & Scott of James Weaver and Chris Dyson.

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M This position is based in Campbellfield Melbourne and all applications should be made in writing with your resume to: The Managing Director Crow Cams 16 Colbert Road Campbellfield VIC 3061 OR Fax 03 9357 0001 tnolorsport news

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For the month of June you can take advantage of fantastic savings on all our world famous brands. Come in and help us celebrate our 10th Birthday and pick yourself up a fantastic bargain. Sale starts on Saturday June 1 and must finish 6pm on Friday June 28.

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French MotoGP

sTiiiltiA times Ion at Le Mans

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LookScJiue^i-Ho: haclly the r'l^tit mtyment bvfoM tKt' rains came.

RAIN may have stopped the French Grand Prix, but it could not stop Valentino Rossi from taking the top step on the podium.

The Italian took the lead at the classic Le Mans circuit and, when the heavens opened two laps later, he lead team-mate Tohru Ukawa to another 1-2 for the undefeated Honda team.

But it was not all smooth sailing for the World Champion.

After leading away from the start, a rare mistake saw Rossi fall behind Ukawa and the rejuvenated Yamaha of Max Biaggi before a well-timed counter-attack saw him take the win.

"It was a difficult race," admitted The Doctor after the race. "Some parts of the track wet while others were dry. I was just lucky to have got the lead when I did."

With 75 percent of the race run, the race was declared and Rossi had extended his lead in the MotoGP championship.

But the signs are that the tide is starting to turn. Rossi had to battle for pole position, with an all-four stroke front row shared

by Ukawa, Biaggi and his team mate Carlos Checa, development parts finally allowing Yamaha's YZR-M1 to show race-winning speed. And the gap to the second row and the rest of the grid, for that matter-was small, Daijiro Kato leading the West Hondas of Loris Capirossi and Alex Barros 20

and the impressive Proton of Jeremy McWilliams.

In the battle for the minors, Biaggi held off Norick Abe for third, Kato aiding the Yamaha riders' cause with a lap 12 fall, while an off by Tetsuya Harada led to not just his demise but that of Checa, who crashed on the Japanese's debris.

Kenny Roberts finished fifth ahead of the other Proton, Nobuatsu Aoki taking his team's best result of the season. Team-mate McWilliams dropped to 10th after suffering tyre problems.

Garry McCoy missed the race, his leg injuries forcing him to park his Red Bull Yamaha. He was replaced by Jean-Michel Bayle, the Aussie expected to take up to six weeks to recover.

Points: Rossi 95, Ukawa 61, Capirossi 45, Abe 43, Kato 39, Barros 29, Aoki 28, Checa 27, Biaggi 23, Akira Ryo (Suzuki) 20.

FONSl Nieto is the new superstar of the 250 class after taking his second straight win in France.

The Spaniard's Telefonica Movistar Aprilia glided around the track on rails and he outthought Marco Melandri to take the win.

"Neither of us wanted to lead going into the last lap," he said, "but Marco did not want to pass and once he had passed he went so slowly that I was afraid Locatelli and (Randy) De Puniet would catch us, so, after we played about a bit, I went

back into the lead and kept the door shut so he couldn't come past."

Frenchman De Puniet just managed to hold of Locatelli for third to the delight of the 70,000 fans.

Another great qualifying performance was the highlight of the weekend for Casey Stoner, but the race ended in disaster when he tumbled off his Aprilia and broke his wrist.

The 16-year-old is expecting to make the next race, despite the injury.

TROY Bayliss is not human.

No human being could ever fall off a Superbike twice before finishing fifth in the same race and then dominate the next race.

But that is what Bayliss did at Silverstone. On the SBK’s first trip to the famed GP track, the Taree rider lurched off his Infostrada Ducati twice, remounted both times and finished fifth.

Then he left Race 1 winner, Honda’s Colin Edwards, and the rest of the field in the background^ to take yet another victory in what is becoming a stellar year. Twelve races, nine wins, huge lead in series.

Amazing ...

“When I saw Troy crash, I had no doubt at all that he’d be back on the machine and flying through the field so it came as no surprise to learn he’d finished fifth,” admitted Edwards after the race.

It was a V-twin benefit in the rain, with Noriyuki Haga’s Aprilia, the Ducatis of Neil Hodgson, PierFrancesco Chili, Bayliss, Ben Bostrom and Ruben Xaus and local Mark Heckles’s Honda filling out the Race 1 results, while Chris Walker’s Kawasaki upset the pecking order in Race 2, taking fourth behind Bayliss, Edwards and Xaus.

“I couldn’t get any heat into my tyres,” Bayliss said of his first fall, “and when I crashed I think I got rocks in the air box, which made the throttle stick. The power was so snappy and not smooth.”

Of the other Aussies, Peter Goddard scored a point for Benelli in the first race, finishing 15th.

Points: Bayliss 260, Edwards 231, Hodgson 157, Haga 129, Xaus 120.

Points: Nieto 69, Roberto Rolfo (Honda)52, Emilio Alzamora (Honda) 47, Melandri 45, De Puniet 42.

LUCIO Cecchinello took out the 125 race, holding out World champion Manual Poggiali (Gilera) in a frantic last lap scrap. , Poggiali, who had a DNF and a DQ in the previous two races, at least got points for second ahead of 16-year-old Spaniard Dani Pedrosa, who is now fourth in points. , Championship leader Arnaud Vincent (Aprilia) was deprived of the honour of a home podium appearance when Toni Elias (Honda) got past on the run to the flag. Masao Azuma (Honda) and Pablo Nieto (Aprilia), always part of the battle for the lead, were fifth and sixth.

Points: Vincent 78, Poggiali 61, Cecchinello 57, Pedrosa 53, Steve Jenkner (Aprilia) 35.

molorsporl news

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BIKES Kawasaki’s GP prototype races

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KAWASAKI ran its Ninja ZX-RR in the prototype class of the first round of the All-Japan Superbike Championship at Mine two weeks ago. Test rider Akira Yanagawa finished third behind Akira Ryo's V4 four-stroke Suzuki, setting fastest lap (1m24.824s) along the way. "Even though we're still in the dataaccumulation stage," said Yanagawa, "I think the results we were able to achieve in qualifying were along the lines we had predicted. There’s not much of a gap between ourselves and the Suzuki machine."

Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images

McCoy sidelined for two months? n

IT could be as long as two months before Garry McCoy is seen back in action in the MotoGP series.

The Australian, who has struggled all year alter a testing fall during the pre-season, may be off his Red Bull Yamaha until July, following the correct diagnosis of the injuries which were causing him pain over the last four races.

After qualifying 18th fastest in France last week, McCoy stood down from his ride in favour offormer Yamaha rider Jean-Michel Bayle. Following treatment for what was thought to be his most recent break, it was discovered that McCoy’s pain was, in fact, being caused by an older injury he sustained in 2000.

Bayle is expected to fill-in on the blue machine in the meantime.

THERE will be major changes to World Superbike racing next season.

Last weekend at Silverstone's round of the championship, representatives of the Flammini Group and the FIM issued a statement, outlining changes for the machines which compete in the series from next season.

The biggest change will see 1000CC four-cylinder motorcycles join the class under its current technical rules, except for the fitment of an air restrictor on the engine, and a minimum 29 May 2002

n The Foggy Petronas team unveiled its Burton-on-Trent (UK) state-of-the-art facility to the press last week, team boss Carl Fogarty adamant that the team would race in July, "It's amazing what you can do with a shitload of money," were his opening words when he addressed his guests. Rider Troy Corser was less succinct; "I'm bored, I haven't got a bike to ride." n Damon Buckmaster has run foul of the AMA Appeal Board in the US. The Aussie's Yamaha Formula Xtreme racer, which features an R1 motor in an R7 frame, has been deemed illegal, which will force his Grave Motorsport team to field a new machine at Pikes Peak on June 2. Despite the ruling, Buckmaster will keep his points from the first three rounds in the series, all of which he has won.

4

n Anthony Gobert will miss the upcoming rounds of the AMA Superbike championship after breaking a leg in qualifying at Road Atlanta. The NSW rider underwent surgery last week, but Gobert and his medical advisers are still to determine when he will be able to race again.

weight of 168kg.

The move is part of an ongoing development to even out the competition in the class, which is currently seen as a benefit for manufacturers of V-twin machines.

Already, response from the announcement has been positive, with suggestions that Yamaha will announce a return to the class as soon as next month. The manufacturer, which pulled its 750s out the series in 2000, left, is expected to mount a two-bike team based on its R1 model.

H Eric Bostrom went within 0.2s of derailing the Nicky Flayden Show in the latest AMA Superbike Championship round at Road Atlanta. The Kawasaki rider led Hayden’s Honda early but the V-twin fought back, Hayden taking his fifth straight win and 10th in 11 races, Miguel DuHamel (Honda) was third from Aaron Yates's Suzuki, while Mat Mladin was sixth. n Scott Russell will return to motorcycle racing at Road America next month, but not on a Superbike.

The five-time Daytona 200 winner and 1993 World Superbike champion will race on the Supermotard oval course aboard a Husqvarna 610 SMR, suitably,modified for road racing.

21

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Grit your teeth and hold on: Ryan Briscoe’s struggle in F3000 (Photo by Sutton-lmages) continues, with the Aussie failing to finish at Monaco.

Belter Bourdais

THE Australian contingent have again struggled in the latest round of the International Formula 3000 Championship at Monaco.

Rob Nguyen again outqualified Nordic Racing’s Ryan Briscoe, lining up 11th, some 0.8s off pole-sitter Sebastien Bourdais, with Briscoe 14th.

But in the race, only six cars made the finish, Bourdais taking an easy 18.4s victory over Patrick Ffiesacher, Tomas Enge, Antonio Pizzonia, Ricardo Sperafico and Mario Haberfeld.

Both Australian drivers were non-finishers, Nguyen ending up in the wall while running ninth, ahead of Astromega team-mate Haberfeld.

“Eventually I just made a small mistake that would have made little difference at a normal track, but Monaco doesn’t forgive the slightest error,” said Nguyen.

“As soon as I spun I clipped the barriers and that was that. But I can still draw several positives from the weekend: I have learned a whole lot more, including the art of driving around a street circuit, and I have proved that I can be competitive in this situation.

“The end result might have been disappointing, but there was plenty to feel upbeat about.”

The championship now heads to the next round at the Nurburgring in support of the European Grand Prix on June

23.

Points: Bourdais 24, Enge 21, Pantano 17, R. Sperafico 16, Haberfeld 12, Friesacher 10.

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Before the crash: Nguyen was easily out-pacing teann-mate

Haberfeld before the Aussie crashed.

(Photo by Sutton-lmages)

JAMES Courtney has further extended his lead in the British Formula 3 Championship after taking his third successive win at Croft on Sunday.

Starting from pole position, the Aussie out-dragged American Richard Antinucci into the first corner in treacherous conditions, and pulled away from the pack as the rest struggled to deal with the spray.

Things were made somewhat better for Courtney when main championship rival Robbie Kerr had a spin on lap one and was collected by Mark Taylor, putting both out.

The Safety Car made an appearance while Taylor’s car was removed from its dangerous resting place, only for it to re-appear a short time later when Kerr’s Alan Docking Racing team-mate, Mark Mayall, went off the road.

Courtney disappeared into the distance to win by 12s over

Antinucci and Courtney’s Carlin Motorsport team-mate, Michael Keohane.

What also disappeared was the second race, which was to have been round 10 of the title. The race ■\yas delayed due to a shower of biblical proportions and then cancelled after an oil trail on the circuit left the road too dangerous to race on.

Championship organisers intend to reschedule the race for later in the season.

Points: Courtney 134, Keohane 86, Kerr/Jouanny 84, Kovalainen 55.

A WEEK earlier, Courtney finished third in the Pau Street Grand Prix, racing against the best F3 teams from Germany, Italy and Great Britain.

He qualified fourth and followed home French championship front runners Renaud Derlot and Bruno Besson.

lider

Davison scores first points ofyear in Porsche Supercup

AUSSIE Alex Davison has grabbed his first polntsscorlng finish of the Porsche Supercup season, finishing ninth on debut on the streets of Monaco.

Having qualified 12th, Davison fought his way through a handful of rivals - which is very difficult to do on the Monte Carlo layout - and grabbed ninth position off Japanese guest driver Ryo Fukuda on the last lap.

“It was my first time at Monaco and that made it difficult all

weekend, though I was actually starting to get into the groove of the track towards the end of the race,” said Davison.

Austrian Philipp Peter won the 16-lap sprint in an all-the-way performance, clear of Wolf Henzier and Marco Werner.

Italian Alessandro Zampedri regained the points lead in the series by finishing fourth, even despite a brake fade problem.

Davison’s team-mate, German Marcel Tiemann, finished fifth.

motorsport news

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I hope I didn’t leave the washing out: Courtney splashes his way around Croft. The weekend before, the weather had been glorious in (Photo by Sutton-lm ages) Pau. But Pau ain’t in England ...

c

OMING off the back of my last two race wins at Knockhill, I took part in the annual F3 event around the streets of Pau (France) where teams from all over Europe do an invitational race.

I qualified fourth, as my session was a bit slower than the other one and settled in for the long (45 minute) race. It’s so demanding, with barriers lining the circuit like at Monaco. So one mistake and you are in the transporter and on the way back home.

But after the fifth lap I had a spring problem in my front suspension and really battled with the car for the rest of the race, finishing third. A pretty good result, in the circumstances.

Off to Croft for the next two British F3 races and the two

qualifying sessions produced another two pole positions, making it nine poles from 10 sessions. The first race was really wet but I led from the start and just controlled my own pace, winning by 12 seconds despite two safety car periods, and setting the fastest lap of the race (that's nine from nine).

But the weather got worse and the organisers decided to cancel the second race and restage it at one of the upcoming events using the grid positions set, meaning wherever it is, I will start from pole.

It's a big week coming up.

29 May 2002

JAMES with JAMES COURTNEY

I'm doing a full days testing in the Jaguar FI car at Silverstone on Thursday and staying at the circuit for our next F3 races on the Saturday/Sunday. It's going to be a bit weird getting out of the FI and straight into the F3 at the same circuit. I'd better remember the braking points are wildly different, or the F3 team will be repairing a lot of my car!

I can't wait to get my backside in the FI car again and hope I can produce some meaningful assistance to the team in their on-going development of the R3. But still, my focus is firmly on winning the F3 championship and I want to come away from Silverstone with an even bigger points lead.

I gotta keep taking those talent pills.

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OPINION

Capital Gains

C

ANBERRA is coming up and I, for one, am looking forward to it.

On its own, the Canberra tracks offers some challenges that no other track has. It is such an exhilarating track to do a lap on. Because of its different nature, I actually really like driving there. Racing is a different matter ... but, over one lap, it's great.

What you need to have is a car that works well in every department. You need to be able to handle the kerbs, get over the bumps well, brakes, straightline speed; you need a good package.

There are five really hard stops in a lap and two first-gear corners. It is hard on brakes and hard on transmissions and it is a tough place to get around quickly.

Despite the different nature of the track, you don't necessarily do things differently before you get there. You might have a few things on the cars that are newer.

lower mileage, but that is about a As for us drivers, I always make sure that I have a drink bottle topped up with hot Milo and I wear a 'hotsuit'l Joking aside, it is a very pleasant place to race; you do not need to worry about feeling hot and bothered when you are racing. Canberra is the only place where you race with all the windows wound up!

s

o far this season, everyone has been playing at chasing the two red cars.

I suppose that the next best at the moment are the other TWR cars but we are in the slot behind them. At Darwin, it was not so much the circuit but changes we have made to make inroads into maintaining our rear tyre life. We

made some big changes and we are confident that the rears will hang in better in Canberra.

As for the overall speed of the HRT cars in qualifying, there is no way we are in their ballpark for speed. But no-one else is either; even the Kmart cars struggle.

They have something in qualifying that seems to suit everywhere.

Compared to that, we are nowhere near it at the moment, but we are not giving up. We are encouraged by the results from Darwin, even though Larry and Russell had shocking days, the cars were actually pretty good.

That is a product of starting outside the top 10.

But, if you can qualify well and maintain the rage, there is a chance. You know that the two

I always make sure that I have a drink bottle topped up with hot Milo and I wear a 'hotsuit'i

11

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Motor Mouth

With Steven Richards HRT cars are going to hang in there and maybe get a podium, but we are in contention to get there as well.

Canberra is more of a team event, with pit stops and a reverse grid race and anything can happen. This could be one of the meetings where the Big Red Juggernaut falls off its perch ...

l V

s^ifficult timesy caviar T

With Joe Saward

hese are difficult times in Formula 1 but let us keep this all in perspective.

These are not difficult times for millionaires.

When there is a million in the bank, it is not quite the same thing Perhaps one cannot afford to buy a new yacht or the contents of Tiffany, and the wife may have to go First Class to New York rather than using Concorde. But there is still caviar on the table. The kids still go to nice schools, one doesn’t worry about the phone bill coming in and no-one is outside trying to repossess the family pet A recession hits the egos of the rich more than anything else those nasty intrusive journalists wil calculate things differently n and suddenly one is 494th on those lists of the rich rather than

\\

being 213th.

Listings of rich people are fascinating but the figures are completely wrong and wildly inaccurate most of the time.

A couple of years back, I had the very great satisfaction to calculate that I was a paper millionaire because of the supposed value of the company I owned given an investment made in it. But could I afford to take a taxi to the airport? No, 1 went by train (a noisy rattly thing on which one is usually safe from meeting FI people).

Paper millions are like paper moons and paper tigers. They are not real.

But it is not nice to be on a list below where you think you should be. Recently, a magazine published a list which purported to be of the most powerful people in Formula 1 and lots of

people were jumping up and down in ego-driven fury. But did anyone look at the circulation figures of the magazine in question?

These are difficult times for magazines (Ed: With a few notable, quality exceptions, Saward). Circulations are down and kids are out buying World Cup football stickers and Star Wars merchandise rather than motor racing publications.

Tmes are hard in the luxury goods industry (which is what FI is all about these days). ” his year, for that very reason I had to reduce the size of my business. I had to let someone go. It was one of the most painful things I have ever had to do and I never wish to do it again.

How these people who fire

Right now, Formula 1 should he looking at how the future is going to he and not quibbling over

FORMULA ONE

truth and harmony 20,000 workers sleep at night is beyond me, except that I guess it is easier when the people you are firing are just names on a list rather than real people with faces, kids and mortgages. I presume, like most things in life, one gets used it, but I could not fire 20 people I knew and then go out for tea at Fortnum & Mason. I would not be able to look myself in the eye in the mirror in the morning.

But, you know, people get used to anything. I used to know a policeman who had to go to every single murder scene in London and sort out the mess.

Fie had seen things that no-one should have to see but he was a nice, cheerful man who survived it all because he felt he was doing something which was of value to society, it must be a nice feeling to have a job which allows one to feel trusted and respected.

Being a Formula 1 journalist is not such a job. I know that I have a lot of false friends but it only really hurts me when I am criticised by someone I trust and respect. Then I listen and try to

improve myself.

Criticism is only painful if one respects the source. If you know that you can trust the critic.

E

very nation on this earth has its own proverbs and it is amazing how many of these relate to the concepts of 'trust' and 'respect'. One can say that proverbs are trite and easy statements that can be written on a postcard and stuck on a wall: "Smile and the world smiles with you" or "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life" and stuff like that.

They are easy answers to modern living.

But proverbs, like a good wine, have taken time to be created. Instant answers are not the answer.

The only way that one can produce instant results is by compromising on the quality.

Instant coffee is instant coffee and it is not the same as a good

espresso. A McDonalds hamburger is a hamburger but it will not match the ones that Vak makes in his little hamburger shop in Flaywood, California.

Proverbs are little nuggets of wisdom which have been percolated for years by generation after generation.

Lessons which have been learned the hard way.

"Flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies, says the Spanish proverb.

"Truth," the Yiddish will tell you, "is not always what you want to hear."

The Slovenians have an interesting view on this subject.

"Speak the truth," they say, "but leave immediately afterwards ..."

The Arabs have a different slant on it.

"Seek counsel of him who makes you weep ... and not of him who makes you laugh," they say.

Cause and Effect: Money ec/iuils wins in inolor mciii}: nml I'I and e\/iei iidl\ Ferrari are no differem. Eddie .Jordan proini.sed lo /hid die eaiise o/ In'- leani \ 11 irhii \ h\ S'ffM) woes hill, instead, found the Corrs ...

X seems to me that that there is an ill-wind blowing at the moment through the FI paddock. There are disputes everywhere and mistrust.

Formula 1 is a war (or so they say) and the first victim in any war is always the truth. Right now there are too many games going on. There are too many vested interests. Attempts are being made to foster an atmosphere of compromise but at the same time there are some trying to wreck the peace and others who open their mouths and say all the wrong things because they have not the wits to realise it is not the moment to be rocking the boat.

Compromise, as any FI designer will tell you, is the thing that slows down a racing car.

Compromises affect performance, productivity and quality. But, when all is said and done, compromises are a necessary part of life because accommodating the desires of all and sundry is just not possible. One has to make compromises.

Right now. Formula 1 should be looking at how the future is going to be and not quibbling over things that have little long term value.

The Greeks have a proverb for that. "A society grows great," they say, "when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in

Five Minutes With

Helm Castponeves Jim Braztmn ilrtver, wim pre-mwtml Hm SpUrnnm movie wUihislencecTmiUw mums athify1^yem^, mm a coawoversim hiHmimmKs 5IW m ^aumy.irnim's wimt he ImH to say altermrds mmm

QUESTION:Helio, can you believe it that you’re a twotime Indy 500 Champion?

HELIO CASTRONEVES:I’m speechless. To be honest, first of all, I have to thank my team, Roger (Penske), Tim Cindric, the whole crew, to give me a car to finish, because to win, first you have to finish. I didn’t have the best car there and I was just trying to keep going,just trying to keep out of trouble, try to not crash, try to keep in the lead lap.

Because I knew that one point, if you have to take a chance, that it would come. And on Lap 160,162,1 don’t remember, Cintec and I decided to stay out. And I couldn’t beheve it, everybody was coming in, and I said this is the chance that I want because I knew I have 20 gallons in the car, and it was like 22 laps to go, and normally it’s a gallon per lap, and I was just trying to keep in good shape, lifting off.

In fact, I lapped, I think it was Kenny(Brack)first of all. I could not see on the mirrors because one guy blew an engine right in front of me, and I believe that’s why the leader(Kanaan)crashed, and I could not see. My mirrors were completely oiled and I was trying to clean and just making it worse.

When Cindric said that there were three cars a lap down behind me, I decided to let them go and try to draft them and keep saving fuel.

It was working really good, but it still was very close and still praying for the yellow.

At one point, one of the Green guys, I believe it was Dario, started passing and lifting off, passing and listing off; I didn’t know who it was. Citidric said, “Now it’s Tracy,” and I could not see who was it. I was turning in Tum three and I was so tense when the yellow came on, I thought because we also have a light for the fuel, I thought I was running out of fuel. And the guys were on the radio, “yellow, yellow, yellow,” and I was so shocked.

And then Tracy passed me very fast, and I was screaming;“He passed on the yellow, he passed on the yellow.” Because I was just waiting for, when I saw the (yellow) light(on the dash), and that’s where you can just stay against...

2B

He did it again!

Helio Casfroneves defended his Indianapolis 500 crown in style, making him the first back-to-back winner since Al Unser in 1970 and 1971.

(Photo by Boyd/Bothwoll Photographic)

with your spotter, because sometimes they don’t throw the yellow. I think this system has worked really well, and I didn’t know if it was going to finish or not, the way it’s going to happen.

Q:Do you know exactly how much gas was left and could you put into words, your emotions, and just what it means?

HC: One thing I know: it was enough to finish. Definitely was enough to finish and compete the last lap.

Emotions, you guys saw, I was so happy. Again I keep saying about that, to win is even better. Like I said, we came here, no doubt about that; we could do it. But during the race, you have to keep the faith, and that’s the only thing that I was keeping the faith and to just give me a chance.

All of a sudden, that’s what happened on the yellow, and then the gamble of the fuel. The rest, I said, listen, I have the chants now, I have to make it happen. I was

saving fuel as much as I can. And no doubt about it, without the yellow, we might not have finished.

So emotional, I think you saw how happy I was climbing the fence, how emotional I was, crying hke a baby, but it’s just another dream come true.

Q:And what about the final caution flag. What was your view?

HC: The only reason he passed me, it’s because the yellow came on, and I lifted off.

No way he could pass me if it would be outside Turn 3 if we were still racing. So he might have passed me on the front straightaway because I was lifting off. That’s why I don’t understand why they are saying something about that. Because he didn’t pass me before, it was because I was protecting a position. And it’s very difficult to pass. And two lines here, it’s very tough; he couldn’t just pass me. I’m the one that lifted off, and because of the

yellow. That’s the point.

Q:Paul maintained that he did not see the yellow until after he had passed you and he was in the middle of the short chute. He said you were protecting your position and then he passed you and then saw the yellow?

HC:I can’t tell what happened in his car, but I definitely can tell in my car. I was protecting my position, I was inside of Tum 3.

And then when I was making Turn 3, it was right on the apex in Turn 3 and still, I could see his rear wheel. The entry of the turn, you can make, but as soon as you ' start the turn. I’m sorry, the car is going to start pushing, especially today because the wind was in the opposite way that from every day on the month. I can’t just say in that position, but definitely in / Turn 3, that’s where the yellow came on, and that’s why I lift off.

Also, I wouldn’t lift off if the yellow would come up; and he would have passed me probably, I don’t know. Only if I run out of fuel.

I did do all the 200 laps, didn’t I? So I ^ess I did have enough fuel to finish. And again it’s something that we are never going to know.

I’m sorry, I can’t feel sorry for Tracy. It’s a tough decision. And today, we have a system that works to everyone, and I can see; it’s a decision that it’s not only for one driver, but all 26 drivers. I guess today is my lucky day.

Q:You’ve done two in a row and nobody has won three, is that your next goal?

HC:You are a little too fast now. I tell you. I’m going to work as hard as I can because if you guys notice, we play in the IRL now and with this victory, we just jumped to the championship lead, and it’s very important to us because it’s not only a race, but also a championship at the end of the year.

That’s my next focus is going to be now, it’s to make sm'e I can complete it. We are going to go to a lot of tracks that we have not raced yet and we have no clue about it. motorsRori news

.S'

29 May 2002

INTERVIEW

David Besnard

Foot

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David Besnard showed competitive speed in Darwin and, as he told PHIL BRANAGAN, it may notJust be a flash in the pan MOTORSPORT NEWS: You had a bit of a return to form at Darwin,that must have felt pretty good. Was there one thing you could put your finger on?

DAVID BESNARD: It wasn't just Darwin, it was Eastern Creek and Phillip Island. We were getting pretty good res'ults there. At Phillip Island I got the black flag for that thing under the pace car, and then we got a wheel rolling down pitlane at Eastern Creek and that cost me too, and that was in the secopd race so I had to start from the back in the third.

But we were looking pretty good there.

But it all sort of came together in Darwin. But the pace has been there. Even at the Grand Prix we were reasonably quick, we were inside the top 10 there. OK, Adelaide we had a bit of a shocker in qualifying, but the race pace was good. This year we just wanted to start running in the top 10 consistently and go from there, and I think we're just getting better and better each weekend.

MN: So now is it just a matter of finding the qualifying pace?

DB: We've just got to keep improving, that's the main thing.

Last year we were pretty inconsistent, we had a couple of good runs but we couldn't do it all the time. This year we're doing it, but we've just been a little bit slow, and that's getting better and better. I'm understanding the car a lot more.

I mean, you can scrub last year, I didn't learn a lot last year because we didn't go that well, but this year we're really getting it sorted out. I know what I want now, and each time we go to the track with a better car off the truck. We've just taken a little bit too long to get it there.

We're qualifying seventh, eighth, somewhere there, and getting it good by the last race. If you look at Darwin, in the second race we had the thing really 30

good, I did the second quickest time there. So we've just got to do it a bit sooner so we can qualify really well, get up the front, give the other guys a run.

Hav a Drumstick: Besnard is getting up to consistent speed in the Caltex/Havoline Falcon and heads into the rest ofthe season in a confident mood.

(Photo by Dirk Klynsmith)

MN:So has it been a matter of tailoring the car to suit you, or have you been getting on top of the V8 Supercar thing?

DB: It's all just relationship, I think. Last year we got ourselves in a pretty deep hole, and even though I realised what I needed to do not far into the year, moving up here to Queensland and all the rest of it, you can't just say 'there's nothing I have to learn now', and that's the way you get the trust back of the whole team.

And we gradually got better last year.

I mean, we got involved in some incidents, which is easy to happen when you're running around in 15th, and over the break we put a lot of effort into it, working out what we wanted to do, and just getting along better with everyone, and the trust is

■cC

i

"This year we just wanted to start running in the top 10 consistently and go from there" building up.

And now there's a really good morale in the team, and that stuff takes a long time to build up once you been in a big hole like we were. And it's just getting stronger and stronger. We're all enjoying our racing, they trust what I say, I trust what they say now, my feedback's a lot better.

We're just all working together better and I've had a much better understanding of the car, MN: How deep was the hole you were in?

DB: It'S'just hard. I thought it was going to be a lot easier.

motorsport news

..'m Everything I done in the past, I'd won, and I thought I'd walk ,● into it like that. We had a couple - of good runs, I outqualified Longhurst, and I qualified the car third at the (Queensland) 500 in 2000, and I thought it would be a lot easier than what it was. I thought I'd just live in Sydney and just cruise up here when I needed to, and all that, and that was wrong.

■We'sorted that out fairly quick, but you can't just say, 'OK, you're going to trust me', it takes a long time to build that back up. So I think it was a pretty deep hole when you consider our potential, which should be running at the front at every race meeting. You have your bad meetings, obviously. And then we weren't doing that, we were nowhere near it. So I'd say it was a fairly big hole.

MN: What would you change in the running or the rules of V8 Supercars if you could?

DB; I think pre-qualifying was the biggest thing. It doesn't affect me this year though.

But nothing really. There's going to make more mistakes, but since AVESCO have been along they've made mistakes. It's good that they're trying things and some of them are wrong but they learn by them and move on from that.

There's not a lot I would change. Just let them keep doing what they're doing. I think sometimes some of the drivers worry too much about that sort of thing when they probably should just get on with it and race by the 29 May 2002

rules that they're given.

I try to keep out of that sort of stuff to be honest. If I wanted to be a politician, I probably wouldn't have left school when I was 14 to go to Italy. I'm not knocking the guys that do it, it's good that some of the drivers take an interest but I'm certainly not the one for it. I'm new to it, maybe a few years down the track I might feel differently, but right now I'm new to it arid don't think it's really my place to come up to any brilliant ideas.

But I respect my peers, and if they want to change things they can, and I'll just go out and race.

Whatever the rules are. I'll do it.

MIM: So, realistically, what are your expectations for the rest of the season?

DB: Well, I'm 12th in the championship now, which is going along to schedule I guess.

Adelaide hurt, because we did two motors and lost a lot of points. If I can get into the top 10 I'd be fairly happy with that, but I'd like to be further up than that, and I think now, Adelaide being the way it was, I think sixth or seventh is a pretty realistic goal for me. It will be tough, but anywhere inside the top ten I'll be happy with, so if we can get to seventh, sixth, anything better than that, great.

WlliM: Race wins?

DB: I'm going to try at every race meeting. I'll be trying to win, and we're getting closer to that, but we're being realistic about that this year, and it's not something

that will happen overnight.

We could have a good meeting: 1 could nearly have won at Oran Park last year. But realistically we're sort of where we want to be now, and running consistently in the top 10 and

improve from here, and I think it's not impossible that I could have race wins by the end of the year, but we're just going to keep doing what we're doing and it will come when the time is ready.

● Sparco FlA approved boots'^$272 ● ERG FlA approved boots <’'■$175 ● Sparco Kart boots ^'■$169

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Factory 9,19-25 Grange Rd Cheltenham VIC Ph 03 9585 5340 Fax 03 9585 5320 31

Fred Gibson

The view fpom a fpont pow seat Former'leading team owner Fred Gibson has observed the V8 Supercar circus with interest since departing Gibson Motorsport at the end of2001. But,,as he tells CHRIS LAMBDEN in a very frank interview, the man who has seen both sides of the Holden/Ford fence sees a cloud or two looming for Australia's number one motorsport category

MOTORSPORT NEWS:Six months have passed since you departed what is now 00 Motorsport - what have you been doing?

FRED GIBSON: Noel Watson and I undenvrote the merchandising and web company that created the Gibson Motorsport/Lowndes/Ford merchandising experience, so when we were elbowed out of the team we decided that, as we still owned the truck, the technology and the people, we should try and do something else in that area, particularly to keep a really good team of people together in a job.

So amongst other things, we tendered for the IMG Event Merchndise contract for the five major V8 events they are the promoters of(Canberra, Bathurst, Indy 300, Pukekohe and Sandown) and were successful in winning the contract for the next three years so that’s what we’re doing.

There’ll be something a bit special for the fans when we roll out our kit at Canberra...

MN:So you’re observing from 32

the sidelines?

FG: I am watching what’s going on and, I guess, I’m a bit disappointed with what’s going on.

I see in the magazines that a few of them were blueing and jumping up and down about pre-qualifying and as a result, we’re going to end up with what amounts to a closed shop in terms of the ability to be part of the V8 Supercar championship and where it’s going W

I am watching whafs going on and, I guess,I'm a bit disappointed"

- Fred Gibson

to be impossible for new young drivers and their teams to be part of it.

And the problem, I think, stems right back to the structure of the TEGA Board, where you’ve got a board made up of team owner/drivers and three of the four seem to be basically interested in pushing their own barrow.

CART in the USA almost destroyed itself with that kind of structure. They’ve realised before it’s too late and are doing something about it.

People should think back to how this all started. They sometimes have short memories - Larry (Perkins)is one ...

Remember TCI, way before TEGA? It was put together with Dick (Johnson) and myself pretty much funding it(at a cost of some $200,000+ a year). It was a marketing initiative with Paul Beranger and Rob Corbett, and it seemed to be working quite well.

But eventually it got ‘white-anted,’ if you like, by people, including Larry in my view, who were simply pushing their own interests and agendas.

Now in this sport you do have to push for your interests - to a degree. As we had to do with the (Nissan) GT-R,for example. If it starts affecting the sport as a whole, then the whole thing can sink and you’re all out of work.

At the time I had to keep going

back to Leon Daphne at Nissan to say “we’ve just been handicapped another 50 kgs” and he would wonder what the hell was going on.

But the GT-R had to come back to the field. The car was too competitive. It would have killed the sport. And if you kill the industry, no-one’s got a job.

We have a different set of problems in the category today we are not comparing apples with apples; the GT-R’s problem and the solution that was implemented is very different to any problems affecting theW8 Supercar category today.

So TCI fell over and TEGA started soon after that. And out of it came a lot of good things - the TEGA/AVESCO set-up; getting the marketing rights off(TAMS, and so on. Tony Cochrane - who’s got his good and bad points!- and Wayne Cattach have played their part in making V8 Supercar racing what it is today.

But now I read of instability, of moves to sack the board, and all that stuff- which is bad for the motorsport news

INTERVIEW ●p

^ i-ipn .

* ●*'1/]

4

Signs of the past: The change from Holden to Ford was a major upheaval for the Gibson team, quite apart from the

arrival of long-time Holden man Craig Lowndes, left.

(Photos by Slipstream Photographic)

.

sport. And now there’s this move to get rid of‘prequalifying.’

MN: It’s wrong?

EG; It’s wrong. There are probably more than 50 V8 Supercars around capable of fronting up for any event. They should all be able to run on Friday - and the best 32 or 34 or whatever get to qualify

The Tranchise' system... is being used now to 'buy' guaranteed entries for some drivers whs wouidn't necessariiy get a main show start if they had to do it on talent.

That'S wrong If

through to the weekend’s main event. The rest, given the seeming dissatisfaction with some of the support events, should run a supporting race or two at the same meeting.

Garry Rogers is on the board of TEGA. He’s proposed this sort of ‘Speedway’ philosophy before, where everyone who turns up has the opportunity. But some of the other teams are scared, that’s for sure.

The ‘franchise’ system protects the commercial interests ofthe long-established teams, which is what it should do, but it’s being used now to ‘buy’ guaranteed entries for some drivers who wouldn’t necessarily get a main show start if they had to do it on talent.

That’s wrong.

It’s not ground-breaking technology -like Busch cars, NASCARs,Sprintcars. They all run and the best get through. Look at golf- even Tiger Woods has to make the cut!

This concept that Driver A(who may well have been a front runner on occasions)failed to get through pre-qualifying being TEGA’s fault is bullshit. It’s his fault- on the day, either he or his team weren’t good enough.

Some of these teams are selling their sponsors on being guaranteed a spot in the main show. They should if necessary be saying to them “give us $X. We are hopeful of qualifying and running in the top V8 Supercar show and if we do, as the year goes on, give us another $X...”

MN: So you think that a change in the structure of the TEGA Board is required to put things right?

FG: Yes. The current set-up is not progressive. It’s a step backwards and the influence of the father/son stuff is a recipe for disaster - it has always been problematical in motor sport.

The best father/son pairing I’ve seen which you could say really worked in motorsport was Richo. I watched how he handled Steven

continued on page 34

The Race Shep ps 03 B46R HOBS f; 03 9^BS SS1B es greencatt:an@blgpandl.cam.au 29 May 2002

33

Fred Gibson continued from page 33 when he, Jim, was driving for me.

He did it extraordinarily well.

The Board needs to be principally made up ofindependent business-minded individuals. Sure, have a Ford and a Holden team representative, but with other completely independent people making up the majority.

CART went through this - a board made up of team owners and nearly died.. They’ve made changes and it’ll probably now survive.

We have the same situation; owners, owner/drivers on the board - and it will fail. Look at the latest idea - a ‘steering committee’to advise the board on its future. With the greatest of respect, three of the four on that committee are fathers who own teams in which their sons race. ' That’s bad. It’s bad for the sport.

It’s becoming a ‘rich old-man’s’ club.

There are one or two drivers who shouldn’t be in the Level 1 field, and there are a couple of drivers in the Konica series who should be in the Level 1 field. That’ll upset a few people, but 1'don’t care. That’s the way it should be.

So, you have to go back to the concept of everyone having the right to try to qualify on Friday for the main event. If you miss out, you miss out.

MN:One thing that hasn’t changed in the last six months is what’s happening on-track TWB/EDRT dominating, still. Are the others doing that bad a job?

FG:Yes, they are. You can’t knock TWR.They have put the best package together. People don’t understand how long it takes to put it all together so that everyone works as a cohesive, motivated team.

Back in the Winfield days, we had that. Money, budget,is a key issue in motor sport. We had the budget- which means you can hire the right people and put the right package together. But even with the budget, you have to mould the package together.

HRT is moulded together. Other teams probably have as big a budget now, but HRT has been there a while, has a good driver combination, a good lot of people and the/re doing a good job.

There’s no way we should handicap that. We should make the others lift their game.

Back when our team was Holden, I said that the Ford was a good car and it should be winning races.

(Ford CEO Geoff) Polites is a decent bloke, a top bloke really, and he desperately wants to turn the Ford ship around. But whether it’s 34

Lowi ties 1

Fortes

MN:Both manufacturers have to.come up with new cars for 2003 - Ford an all-new Falcon; Holden a face-lift Commodore but with Project Blueprint wishbone front end and a much-changed Chev V8. How will that all pan out, do you

think?

FG: It’s a critical time for the category, but if they, particularly Ford, think they are going to come out and beat HRT with their new car, they’d better think again.

OIBSC f.

1

One name is different: Lowndes and Rodney Forbes remain with 00 Motorsport, though the team continues to be inconsistent in 2002. {Photo&by Slipstream and Dirk Klynsmith)

a case of communication problems between the teams and senior management, or whatever. Ford hasn’t yet really grasped just what the problems are.

Right now there’s still not a Ford team doing a complete job. Simple as that. And that’s not HRT’s problem -it’s a Ford team problem.

When we started the Ford team last year with Lowndes, I told Geoff Polites that we weren’t going to turn the world upside down in a few weeks; that it would take two to three years to get to that point.

That team is struggling now. The workload they have, running three cars, is ridiculous. They shouldn’t be doing that.

HRT is the best team and they are going to win a lot of races this year. To think of handicapping them is ... buUshit. Don’t forget that our V8 Supercar series is acknowledged as being the most competitive class of touring car racing in the world.

"Right now there's still not a Ford team doing a complete job. Simple as thar' The changes have to be made sometime, so it’s as good a time as any, but all it’s going to do is give HR’T another leap.

You wait and see. When Holden releases its new model road car, HRT will have their new race car ready - no risk.

They’ll be way ahead of all the other Holden teams and Ford won’t be ready on time. No-one’s started a car yet. Howard Marsden is building a car inhouse and, as far as I know, it’s running late, while none of the teams have a body shell yet. If I were a non-works Ford team. I’d be tempted to run a current AU for a while next year ...

You might say that the Ford guys

only have to put a new shell around the same mechanicals, but it’s a lot of work. When we built the first new Falcon for Lowndes,it was meant to be ready mid-year, but ended up being ready for Bathurst.

Being so different, it just took ages to do.

And teams like 00 Motorsport are going to struggle, running three cars while building a new car as well. It’s a mammoth effort.

MN:Finally, Mitsubishi is seemingly looking at V8 Supercars. Interesting ' development for a recently retired team owner...

FG: Haven’t heard from them! I did say to Tony Cochrane and Wayne(Cattach) a while back that one day th^ Ford/Holden thing

could wane. So the involvement of another manufacturer could be a very good thing.

I once thought it would be good to open it up to all manufacturers - Mercedes, BMW and so on - but Ray Borrett[ED: Holden’s recently appointed GM, Motorsport] made a very sensible suggestion recently that he'd be happy to see other Australian manufacturers join the clan.

I think that’s a good way to put it. Toyota and Mitsubishi are Australian manufacturers and they should have the opportunity to join V8 Supercars. It’d be great for the sport.

No-one’s spoken to me, but I’d love to do something like that because it would be an enormous challenge.

The Chrysler engine would be a good engine and with Project Blueprint it wouldn’t be that difficult - you’d just have to sort the aerodynamics of the car. motorsport news

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Team Orders

After you, St Ferrari's tactics at the A1 Ring got the MN office reminiscing about some of the other occasions in FI where team orders came into play. MARK GLENDENNING looks back at a few of the more notorious incidents

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T is a fact of motor racing life that while all drivers are created equal,some are created a little more equal than others.

And as Ferrari’s firm Number One driver policy illustrated so graphically at the A1 Ring two weeks ago, a few extra lines in your contract can ensure that the equality scales are tipped even further in your favour.

As statistically impressive as Michael Scumacher’s career will be when the curtain finally does drop, it will also be remembered that he had an awful lot of help. Indeed, his reluctance to face a challenge from within his own team will probably count against him when his place alongside the all-time greats is being evaluated.

Rubens Barrichello has moved aside for Michael several times in the past, and he will most certainly do it again in the future.

Similarly, Eddie Irvine virtually built a career out of running his race to the benefit of his team mate during his stint in red.

While this sometimes involved

developing a convenient brake problem while leading only for the glitch to correct itself once Schuey had swept past, other times it was built expressly into his race plan.

Remember Suzuka in 1997, when Irvine spent the whole race running interference to Jacques ViUeneuve while Michael zoomed away at the front?

Eddie’s time came in 1999, when he found himself vaulted into the spotlight- and championship contention - after Michael broke his leg at Silverstone. Mika Salo stepped into the fray, and sacrificed what looked like a certain first Grand Prix win at Hockenheim to protect Eddie’s interests.

And when Michael stepped back into the car in Malaysia, he dutifully moved aside to give Eddie both the win and the chance for a championship showdown against Mika Hakkinen two weeks later.

The situation was similar at Lotus in 1978. With the allpowerful Lotus 78 at his disposal, Colin Chapman nominated Mcuio Andretti as the team leader.

obliging Ronnie Peterson to remain behind him.

When the new Lotus 79 was first unleashed at Belgium, Mario had first dibs on the car - Peterson did not get his hands on one until Spain two weeks later. Andretti led Peterson across the line for four Lotus 1-2 victories, while the Swede won just twice - at South Africa, where he lapped the American, and Austria, where Andretti failed to finish.

Peterson was killed that year after a startline crash at Monza.

McLaren, too, has used team orders from time to time. In recent years, Mika Hakkinen’s first two wins - Jerez in 1997 and Melbourne in 1998 - both came after David Coulthard was asked to move over.

The first was seen as a reward for the Finn’s uncomplaining loyalty through some difficult times with McLaren, the second saw Mika restored to the lead after apparently being called into the pits erroneously by the team.

Coulthard’s payback came at Belgium in 1999, where Hakkinen

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was ‘unable to find a place to pass’.

Mika could no doubt have sympathised with Ralf Schumacher, who found himself in a similar situation a year earljer.

Despite clearly being quicker, Ralf was forced to hold station, extremely reluctantly, behind Damon Hill as the Englishman motored his way toward his last, and the Jordan team’s first. Grand Prix victory.

Yet teams have been manipulating the results of races since the dawn of the sport. In the three years immediately following WWII,the all-conquering Alfa Romeos routinely employed team orders to ensure that Jean-Pierre Wimille, Giuseppe Farina, Archille Varzi, and Count Felice Trossi all got their share of the spoils.

(In fact. Farina’s distaste for the policy contributed to him being sacked by the team after the 1946 season).

Of course. Grand Prix racing had still yet to be organised into a formal championship in the 1940s - the ramifications of manipulating the races in such a way would became rather different from 1950 onwards.

A decade or so later, the dominant force in Grand Prix racing were the Mercedes-Benz W196s, driven by Juan Manuel Know your role: Ronnie Peterson played second fiddle to Mario Andretti at Lotus in 1978.

(Photo by Sulton-lmagos)

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Who’s the boss? At Austria two weeks ago, left, it was clearly Michaei Schumacher, who trailed Rubens Barrichello throughout the weekend before being gifted a highly unpopular win when Rubens slowed at the final corner. But it was a different story in Brazil 21 years ago, above. With team-mate and reigning champ Alan Jones closing in, Carios Reutemann was ordered to allow the Australian through. Reutemann simply refused, (Photos by Sutlon-lmages) forcing a livid AJ to cross the line in second place, Fangio and Stirling Moss.

While Moss was at that point very much the apprentice, he nevertheless managed to become the first British driver to win the British Grand Frix when he greeted the flag at Aintree in 1955.

After lapping the field. Moss and Fangio drove the final lap together, crossing line about half a car length apart.

To this day. Moss doesn’t know whether ‘The Maestro’ allowed him to win. But it’s interesting to note that Fangio was only beaten on one other occasion in FI while driving a Mercedes.

On that occasion, the driver was Karl Kling. A German. And the race was the 1954 Berlin GF, a non-championship race at Avus.

Another win on home soil...

If Fangio did in fact allow Moss and Kling to have their moments in the sun, he did it with great subtlety - a far cry from Ferrari in Austria two weeks ago, and equally at odds with Nigel Mansell’s performance at Monza in 1992.

With the title already in the bag, Mansell was instructed to allow team-mate Riccardo Fatrese to take the win at home in Italy.

When the race began, Mansell rocketed away, built a massive lead, and then slowed to a snails pace so that Fatrese could catch him. When the Italian finally made it past, Mansell sat squarely on his tail for the rest of the race.

Humiliated, Fatrese reportedly never forgave Mansell for his 29 Mav 2002

‘generosity.

But even the best-laid team orders sometimes fail. Just ask Alan Jones. The then-reigning champ was running second behind team-mate Carlos Reutemann at a very wet Interlagos in 1981.

A few laps before the end, the Williams team held out a ‘Jones 1, Reut 2’ pitboard. Reutemann simply ignored the instruction, to the intense irritation of Jones and the team, and went on to win the race.

A similar thing happened a year later in Prance, where Rene Arnoux ignored Renault team orders to allow Alain Frost pass, and took the win on home soil.

Although Frost’s face on the podium said all that needed to be said about his team-mate’s ‘amnesia’, a similar situation a few weeks earlier had altogether more horrific consequences.

At the time of the 1982 San Marino Grand Frix, Ferrari team orders had long dictated that if the cars found themselves running 1-2, they should hold station to the flag. When Rene Arnoux’s engine blew, Gilles Villeneuve was promoted into the lead ahead of team-mate Didier Fironi.

The team gave the ‘slow’ sign, instructing the cars to hold their positions and look after their fuel.

Gilles backed off, and Fironi immediately slipped past. The pair swapped the lead until the final tour, when Fironi waved Villeneuve ahead. Believing that

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— Devastated: Gilles Villeneuve was inconsolable after Didier Pironi 'stole' the win for Ferrari at Imola in 1982.

(Photo by Sutton-lmagos) Fironi only been playing to the crowd and would now obey the pit signal - and still mildly concerned about his fuel load - Gilles settled into cruise mode for the final corners. Then, at the last possible moment, Fironi swept past again

and stole the win.

A betrayed Villeneuve declared an open war on his team-mate, to whom he vowed never to speak again. Two weeks later, the French-Canadian was killed during qualifying at Zolder.

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AARON nUJONAN reportsfrom the 'Top EniT f m '^HOUGH Darwin is a long, I long,long way away from anywhere,it was relatively easy to hear the sighs of the nation’s television viewing audience as round four of the V8 Supercar Championship Series played out a fortnight ago. It was TWR domination at its strongest.

It was a case of‘same old, same old’, as the Holden Racing Team steamroller picked up another round win for Mark Skaife as well as second-place with Jason Bright, who won race one. Add to that the fact that their ‘cousins’ at Kmart Racing, Greg Murphy and Todd Kelly, ran third and fourth, and you had the rest of the field fighting for fifth place at best.

“Obviously the guys are doing a very good job,” offered Skaife.

“In a category like this, if you think about it with the mles and restrictions that this category has got, we’ve all got the same weight, you can’t pass any of the backmarkers down the straight because the top-end horsepower is 38

very similar.

“We’ve all got the same wing and t5Te size and the brake size is restricted by the wheel size, so when you think of all that stuff, we’re doing the small things well.

“Big things don’t make differences now. It’s not revolution, it’s more like evolution. The guys have done a great job with making small changes to the cars and that’s paid dividends.”

Bright moved into fifth place in the points tally with his runner-up result, and proved a point(that he is not a spent force) by running the first-ever lm07s lap around the Darwin layout for pole and winning race one.

With the Austrian FI Grand Prix firmly in the minds of many, the question of team orders, even at this early stage of the series, did raise its head at the post-race press conference.

“We had an agreement that we weren’t going to take each other out,” said Bright.

“The races came down to who either led off the start, or whoever

\\

it's not revolution, it's more iike evoiuUon It

-Skaife on HRT’s domination made the best pitstop and in and out lap. On the track there was pretty much nothing between us.’

Practice/Quali^ilg To the delight so many, fronting up atofthe circuit on the Friday of a V8 Supercar round didn’t mean pre-qualifying rather, it meant a long wait until 4pm for a 30-minute hit-out.

The positive vibes around the place, however, took a turn the wrong way as news ofAshley Stichbury’s ever-worsening condition and subsequent passing (see news pages) made its way across the Tasman.

Needless to say, there were many drivers and teams whose minds certainly were not on racing on Friday, with Kiwis Murphy and

Craig Baird running with tributes to their countr3nman on their cars over the weekend.

When it finally rolled around to 4pm,the two 30-minute sessions resulted in defending round winner Marcos Ambrose coming out on top, as each driver had a maximum of 10 laps to start to place themselves in the set-up ‘window’.

Skaife, Kelly, Glenn Seton and Mark Larkham were next,'vidth Saturday’s practice sessions falling to Bright and Murphy.

And so to qualifying.

It wasn’t altogether surprising to see the two red cars at the top of the pile after the first ‘top 50 percent’ session was run, with Skaife out-doing Bright.

But what really was a surprise was the ‘forgotten’ red car of Rick Kelly. The Young Lion was seventh after the session, only to be bumped out to 11th and forced to miss out on what was looking like his first Shootout berth.

continued on page 40 moiorsport news

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V8 SUPERGAR CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

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The Heroes of Holden: Mark Skaife and Jason Bright were again the dux of the ciass at Hidden Vaiiey, above and below left, making it four consecutive round wins for Skaife and HRT. Skaife needs to win in Canberra and Perth to equai the record for most consecutive round wins, heid by his Bathurst co-driver to-be, Jim Richards. The Hoiden flags were out in force in Danwin to see the General clean house, below right. (Photos by Dirk Klynsmilh and James Smith)

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continued from page 38

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I thought I was going to get a crack aUt there for a while, but the aim all year is to keep on improving on qualifying and get higher and improve as the season goes on. But I’ve got to step up again to push on from that sort of position!” said Rick. ..

A measure ofjust how ‘on it’ the HRT cars were, was the fact that

Doing it tough: Two of the Kiwi contingent in Murphy, above, and Baird, below, ran in remembrance of late mate Ashley Stichbury, who died following a brain haemmorage back home in New Zealand on Friday of race week.

(Photos by Dirk Klynsmith and James Smith)

Skaife only did five laps, Bright 10.

On the other hand, third-placed Murphy only did one flyer to be third, one ten-thousandth (!) of a second behind Bright. Everybody, of course, was mindful ofjust how

POSNO DRIVER 1 1 Mark Skaife 2 2 Jason Bright 3 51 Greg Murphy 4 00 Craig Lowndes 5 16 Steven Richards 6 9 David Besnard 7 888 John Bowe 8 4 Marcos Ambrose 9 21 Brad Jones 10 15 Todd Kelly 11 02 Rick Kelly 12 5 Glenn Seton 13 17 Steven Johnson 14 34 Garth Tander 15 8 Russell Ingall 16 600 Simon Wills 17 10 Mark Larkham 18 35 Jason Bargwanna 19 18 PaulRadisich 20 65 Max Wilson 21 36 Wayne Gardner 22 3 Cameron McConville 23 11 Larry Perkins 24 31 Steve Ellery 25 54 Craig Baird 26 29 Paul Morris 46 John Faulkner 7 Rodney Forbes 43 PaulWeel 40 Cameron McLean 24 Paul Romano 66 Tony Longhurst 27 Neil Crompton 021 Jason Richards 75 Anthony Tratt 14 Stephen White

CAR HRT Commodore VX HRT Commodore VX Kmart Commodore VX 00 Motorsport Falcon AU Castrol Perkins Commodore VX Caltex Havoline Falcon AU OzEmail Falcon AU Pirtek Falcon AU OzEmail Falcon AU Kmart Commodore VX Young Lions Commodore VX Ford Credit Falcon AU Shell Helix Falcon AU Valvoline Commodore VX Castrol Perkins Commodore VX CAT Falcon AU Orrcon Falcon AU Valvoline Commodore VX Shell Helix Falcon AU Betta Electrical Falcon AU Caltex Havoline Falcon AU Lansvale Commodore VX Castrol Perkins Commodore VX Super Cheap Falcon AU Team Brock Commodore VX Sirromet Commodore VX Dynapack Commodore VX 00 Motorsport Falcon AU K8iJ Thermal Falcon AU VIP Pet Foods Falcon AU Ultra Tune Commodore VX Betta Electrical Falcon AU l 00 Motorport Falcon AU Team Kiwi Commodore VX Toll Racing Falcon AU IMS Commodore VX

TIME

1:08.4712 1:08.5688 1:08.5689 1:08.6869 1:08.8209 1:08.8212 1:08.8349 1:08.8790 1:08.8939 ' 1:08.8975 1:08.9645 1:09.0021 1:09.0026 1:09.0379 1:09.0402 1:09.0684 1:09.0796 1:09.0954 1:09.1266 1:09.2005 1:09.3159 1:09.3704 1:09.3778 1:09.4038 1:09.4475 1:09.4723 1:09.4831 1:09.4892 1:09.5491 1:09.6092 1:09.6101 1:09.6554 1:09.6969 1:09.7158 1:09.9164 1:11.4550

Top 10 Shoot-out

long Saturday was, with a 20-lap race still to come and tyre conservation paramount for Simda/s pair of 35 tappers.

Lowndes was fourth, two-tenths

1 2 3 4 5

off pole, though mindful of trying to find a way of looking after the #00 machine’s rear tyres. A nm through the scenery entering Clubhouse Comer after setting his time proved that ‘The Kid’ was pushing hard ...

Whereas his former partners in TWR crime always look to be in control of their speed, Lowndes has

Jason Bright 1:07.8546R Mark Skaife 1:08.0830 Marcos Ambrose 1:08.4780 1:08.7407 Greg Murphy Craig Lowndes 1:08.8112

6 7 9 10

1:08.8576 Todd Kelly David Besnard 1:08.8654 1:08.9726 John Bowe 1:09.2271 Brad Jones Steven Richards 1:14.4675

/

V8SCSRound4 Hiflilen Valley

to muscle every last but of speed out of the Falcon to try and overcome the obvious TWR edge.

That means that Craig runs off the road a little bit more now than ever before...

Richards was fifth, only chiming in with a time in the session’s closing stages, while rounding out the field for the shootout were David Besnard, John Bowe,Ambrose, Brad Jones and Todd Kelly.

Bowe had run in the second session and it was just as well, for the OzEmail team had to repair the #888 car after a practice incident with Steven Johnson, an incident that left Johnson’s crew hurriedly repairing #17 as it was in the first session.

Johnson had smacked into the back of Bowe at an estimated 170

continued on page 42 40

I’ve got a Stone in my shoe: Marcos Ambrose couldn't repeat his 2001 Darwin success, while team-mate David Besnard bounced back to form with a strong run.

(Photo by Ditk Klynjmllh)

moiorspon news

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Hidden Uallev continued from page 40

tenths off the pace but back in 15th. A run off the road in an earlier practice session that km/h as ‘JB’ headed for the pits at required a new guard and spoiler the last moment on ending a lap. had delayed things somewhat, but The only trouble was that the speed just wasn’t there.

‘Junior’ was right up behind his Simon Wills, Mark Larkham, rear wing and that meant a decent Jason Bargwanna, Paul Radisich impact, one that meant Bowe’s car and Max Wilson rounded out the had a bent diff housing, while top 20, covered by eight-tenths of a Johnson’s required a mini re-build second. And they reckon that’s a of the right front. close gap for the front row of an FI In the end wash-up, 13th wasn’t Grand Prix to be covered by! a bad run from Johnson, especially Bright rocked everybody back on considering there’d only been time their heels later in the day to grab for a wheel alignment done by eye! pole with a stunning lm07.8546s, “I was racing him for two laps Skaife’s lm08.0830s close, but not and still at full speed and he good enough. decided to pit at the very end of Ofthe rest, Ambrose made a jump the lap,” said Johnson, who was up to third, actually 10th in the first Murphy slid one 11 spot to fourth, with session, only to 99 Lowndes, Kelly(up be bumped out of the from 10th), Shootout.

-Brad Jones on making the Top Besnard, Bowe, “I swerved to 10 Shootout for the first time Jones and Richards (who speared off try and miss him, because entering turn one there was no indication he was too hot) rounding out the 10. pitting, no brake-Ught tap or “I thought I made a bit of a mess indicator.” of the second last comer where I But there wasn’t just one went in a little bit hot and certainly OzEmail Ford in the Shootout, missed the apex, so I was surprised there were two. Jones was in his to see a 07.8,” reflected Bright. first Shootout since joining the “I saw Mark was only a tenth or so off before that last sector so I series full-time in 2000, and ended up ninth in the final grid order. thought he may of knocked us off.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Brad. “To be We’ve now just to go out there and in my first Shootout is a great score as many wins and see where feeling.' It actually feels like I’ve we end up (in the championship).” just taken pole.”

His team-mate in red said that Just outside the Shootout field he hadn’t expected anyone to get after being bumped were the into the 7s, thinking a low-eight younger Kelly, Glenn Seton would be pole. (benefitting from a pre-Darwin test Well, that’s about the only thing at Winton that helped the team he’s been wrong about all year ... learn lots more about the new Dunlop tyre) and Johnson.

Behind came two of the Holden heavyweights in Garth Tander and The cooler conditions of a lateRussell Ingall,‘The Enforcer’ sixSaturday afternoon race meant

It actually feels like I've just taken pole

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More Ford fumbles: It was a pretty terrible weekend if you barrack for the Blue Oval.

Steven Johnson’s Shell Helix Falcon ended up with the need for some nose surgery after hitting John Bowe in practice, top, while Craig Lowndes, above, suffered two engine failures in his 00 Motorsport machine.

The rest of the Ford drivers were generally in the ruck, right, fighting over the Holden scraps.

(Photos by Dirk Klynsmith)

29 Ha» 2002

that tyre conservation in the short term wasn’t a real issue, though everybody had their eyes on conserving the tyres and cars for Sunday’s two race.

“We’ve all got our ‘Sunday’ hats on a little bit,” was Skaife’s precise point following the 20-lapper.

It really was reflected in the follow-the-leader race that ensued.

Bright got the all-important jump from the line and led down Hidden Valley’s almost-sillily long straight, with Skaife, Ambrose and Murphy slotting in behind.

Bright inched his way clear of the rest, and won by 1.4s over Skaife, Ambrose, Murphy, Kelly, Lowndes, Richards, Bowe, Besnard and Seton.

That’s about all there was to tell.

“Mark actually got the better jump but I was far enough in front and on the inside for turn one,” said Bright, who won the Darwin round for Ford in 1999.

Ambrose shadowed the two red cars for the race distance, never too far behind them, saying that it was “a great race early on.”

‘We’ve just got to lead one and we’ll be off and away. We’ve had a gi-eat car eveiy race this year, now we’ve just got to find a bit of pace in qualifying,” he observed.

His fellow Falcon driver, Lowndes, clearly had the measure of Kelly in the race’s opening stages. But his car wasn’t looking after the rear tyres quite as well as Kelly’s and he couldn’t keep the pressure on the former Young Lion.

“I could harrass him to begin with but we lost the rears a little and that was that,” said Lowndes.

The only frontish-runner to hit trouble was Ingall. An engine failure meant that Castrol number eight would be starting at the back on Sunday. The complete reversal of Ingall’s luck in Darwin had

That looks like a long way to the front: Brad Jones and the OzEmail team had a far better weekend in Darwin, Jones making the Shootout for the first time.

(Photo by Diri< Klynsmith) pretty much come half-circle, considering his dominant form in the first few visits to the Northern Territory.

Neil Crompton’s shocking season continued as the #27 machine ground to a halt when it stripped a power steering belt, leaving him to join Ingall at the rear of the field.

Race 2 (35 laps)

While having a compulsory pit stop for tyres wasn’t anything new for Sunday, it was back to the ‘no pitting under Safety Car’ rules with ^6 cars in the field. What that continued on page 44

Hidden Valiev

Darwin V8 Briefs IF you ever vvanted some statistical proof that V8 Supercar racing is unbelievably tight, then how about the fact that 1.13s covered the top 30 cars.

And that 1.5s covered the top 35!

The margin is a new record for a 'top 30 spread'. n Absent from Darwin, and therefore missing his first ATCC/SCS/ V8SCS round in 12 years was Network Ten's Mark Oastler. Marko's wife Tanya was due to give birth to their first child at any moment, so Greg Rust dived into the commentary box alongside Matthew White. n With his late mate Ashley Stichbury on his mind, Greg Murphy dedicated the results of the top three TWR drivers to the memory of his friend. "We're dedicating all our results to him," said Murf. "It's been a real tough one, but we've got to keep on going and work through it." n While he entered the pits in front but came out behind team-mate Mark Skaife in race three, Jason Bright had a simple explanation. He overshot his pit, but as he said, "nearly killed Jeff (Grech)" in the process! n The Kelly/Bargwanna race two incident and another between Larry Perkins and Tony Longhurst in race three were both deemed 'racing incidents' by the officials. n While the race day reported crowd of 17,381 was down a few thousand on 2001, the overall threeday crowd of 36,702 was up on the 32,300 of last year.

-AARON NOONAN 44

Double view: John Bowe's weekend, above, started super but fell away with some off-track excursions, though the bill wasn’t anything like the race two pile-up, below. Regular Darwin performer Russell Ingall, above right, had a shocker among the rumours of his 2002 future, while the^ TWR steam-roller, right, continued without a hiccup.

.

(Photos by Dirk Klynsmith)

continued from page 43 would do would mean that any different pit stop-timing strategies employed by other teams to topple HRT would never see the light of day, as they stayed on the cautious side and pitted pretty much as soon as the pit window opened.

Extending the pit window has no effect, for no team manager in thenright mind would leave their driver out for so long, whether it be tyre wear or the risk of a Safety Car. The world started rocking on lap one of race two, as the field fired into the right/left chicane before Clubhouse Comer. Skaife had made the better start and moved across to lead Bright into the opening turn, but further back in the pack, all hell broke loose.

Rick Kelly and Jason Bargwanna touched as they ran side-by-side through the chicane.

The latter took to the grass and emerged unscathed, while the Young Lion skidded back into the path of the oncoming traffic. While both Johnson and Radisichyfrsf managed to miss him, John

Faulkner didn’t, bashing into the rear of the #02 machine. Rodney Forbes ploughed into Faulkner, while Ingall, Wayne Gardner and Anthony Tratt all joined the scene, until Paul Morris rounded things out nicely with a full-sideways stop into the pack.

“His front wheel nut was only just in front of my rear wheel nut,” said Kelly later, who was out for the day.

“It’s very disappointing, and the real sad thing is that there’s five other guys out for the day as well.”

So the track was cleaned up and we had another go, but this time it was Lowndes who left the scene, with a spin at the horseshoe on the opening lap. The spin looked like a rookie mistake and not one from a three-time champ. It was an engine failure, described as a “catastrophic component failure” and he made it back for the ‘00’ crew to switch engines.

Now it was a case of seeing who stopped when. Bright and Ambrose hit the speed-limit buttons at the end of lap three, though a crossthreaded right-rear wheelnut delayed the Pirtek driver and he

dropped from third to tops had been completed.

Skaife was in at the end of lap five from the lead and had a cracker of a stop, re-joining 1.8s clear of Bright, who’d been not far behind before the stops.

Murphy pitted at the end of lap seven but resumed behind team mate Kelly, whom he’d run in front of earlier, so when all was settled and pit stops had been done, it was Skaife inching clear of Bright, Kelly, Murphy, Besnard (who’d picked up two spots in the pit stops), Richards, Bargwanna (a cracker of a stop), Bowe, Tander, Seton and Ambrose.

Seton slid off the leaderboard with a spin on lap 12, while Bowe went to the pits on lap 15, with the car stuck in second gear, the same problem that had afflicted him in Adelaide. It was repaired and he re-joined but the weekend was lost.

What else was there to talk about? Well, Tander went by Bargwanna, Besnard had a short trip off-course but resumed with 10 laps to go and that was that.

Skaife cruised home by 4s, even moiorsport news

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V8 SUPERGAR CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

Rubbery figures I

EVER since it was announced that Dunlop would take over the supply of control tyres to V8 Supercar racing, the new boys on the block(or returnees, to be technically correct) have set a standard far higher than expected.

And that’s not just in terms of the on-track performance of the tyres, but also in the sheer commitment made by the company, through additional advertising and the like, For the long haul to Hidden Valley, Dunlop took a total of 630 tyres for the 36 V8 Supercars, including 370 K5P5 slicks, right, (weighing 11-kilograms each) and 260 SP Sport R92 wets (weighing 12-kilograms).

Each of the tyres Is entirely hand-made and takes more than three hours to manufacture, which is significantly longer than it takes for a V8 Supercar to chew a set of them upl Around 9000 tyres will be supplied throughout the 13 round V8 Supercar Championship, with 10 engineers and fitters servicing the requirements of the field.

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The new bar code system, which sees every tyre scanned and recorded when it is allocated to a team, has also slashed the time it takes to allocate and record 350 tyres to competitors at race meetings.

Once it took three hours, now it takes about 25 minutes.

Now, that’s about the length it takes for a V8 Supercar to chew them up ...

- AARON NOONAN

(

the late-race issue of some lapped traffic not enough to give Bright a sniff, with Kelly, Murphy, Besnard (who set second fastest lap of the race), Richards, Tander, Bargwanna, Ambrose and Jones rounding out the 10. A TWR 1-4.

Do the maths. That’s one Ford in the top eight. So the proof is there, it’s not just that HRT are at the front that’s making people bored,

it’s the fact that Holden teams, in Kmart and Castrol, are the next best teams.

But there were some Herculian performances just outside the 10.

Paul Weel pulled his way through to 12th, with Crompton (who started ROG) right behind.

Things were bad in Shell Helixland, with Johnson suffering a broken suspension upright, and

When you open your eyes, those Holdens will be gone: Marcos Ambrose confers with PR man Brett ’Crusher’ Murray and Ross Stone.

(Photo by James Smith)

Radisich having to make another pit stop to rectify a loose wheel

continued on page 46

QLD

SA

NSW

WA

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NT

Queensland Raceway Champion’s Way Willowbank Qld 4306 Tel 07 54619100 Fax 07 546191 I I

City Discount Tyres Reynella 147 Sherriffs Rd

Gary’s Motorsport Tyres Unit 2/10 Carnegie PI Blacktown NSW 2148 Tel 02 96768655 Fax 02 96765300

Kostera’s Tyre Service 7 Mead St KalamundaWA 6076 Tel 08 92933500 Fax 08 92931355

Fulton Enterprises 31-33 Tamar St Launceston TAS 7250 Tel 03 63341739 Fax 03 63318252

Stuckey Tyre Service 828 Sydney Rd Brunswick VIC 3056 Tel 03 9386533 I Fax 03 93869153

City Tyre Service 79 Me Minn St Darwin NT 0801 Tel 08 89415388 Fax 08 89415144

Reynella SA 5 161 Tel 08 83873522 Fax 08 83874036

MOTORSPOKT DMALMKS 29 May 2002

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Hidileii tfallev V8SCS Round 4 Hitlclen Valiev iKt 11ZIIVS) FISTESI _ POS DBIVEB RIEEIIME/UPS 23:21.4643 1:09.0966* CA 1 Bright 23:22.9294 1:09.1743 09 2 Skaife 3 Ambrose 23:24.3735 1:09.2387 23:28.5052 1:09.3051 4 Murphy 23:31.4107 1:09.5718 5 T. Kelly 6 Lownoces 23:32.0608 1:09.5198 7 S. Richards 23:36.2053 1:09.6144 8 Bowe 23:38.3287 1:09.7371 9 Besnard 23:38.6405 1:09.8698 10 Seton 23:39.2446 1:09.9129 11 Jones «. 23:43.0834 1:10.0504 12 R. Kelly 23:47.5174 1:09.8368 13 Bargwanna 23:48.4596 1:10.3069 14 Johnson 23:49.8493 1:10.5052 15 Tander 23:50.6670 1:10.0098 16 Larkham 23:51.1504 1:10.5095 17 Radisich 23:51.5834 1:10.4376 18 Wilson 23:55.6512 1:10.6046 23:55.9643 1:10.4449 19 Ellery 23:56.5083 1:10.4460 20 Morris 23:59.5455 1:10.4581 21 Perkins 23:59.9044 1:10.2693 22 Weel 23 McConville 24:01.1447 1:10.1926 24 Longhurst 24:01.4604 1:10.3884 25 Faulkner 24:01.7824 1:10.7018 24:'04.6648 1:10.3259 26 Baird 27 J. Richards 24:05.9055 1:10.5091 28 Wills n 24:08.1030 1:10.7558 24:11.2942 1:10.5854 29 McLean 24:11.5811 1:10.5388 30 Tratt Romano 24:18.0119 1:10.5861 31 24:19.9449 1:10.7665 32 Forbes 33 White 19 laps 1:12.3878 34 Gardner 19 laps 1:10.0016 DNF Ingall 10 laps 1:09.7207 DNF Crompton 8 laps 1:10.7142

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RIM 2(35 IIIW) 1 Skaife 41:40.3634 1:09.2931 41:44.5392 1:09.0658* 2 Bright 41:49.9721 1:09.3515 3 T. Kelly 41:50.4623 1:09.2679 4 Murphy 41:55.1833 1:09.1660 5 Besnard 6 S. Richards 41:59.7424 1:09.5933 7 Tander 42:06.4334 1:09.7450 8 Bargwanna 42:09.9280 1:09.9647 9 Ambrose 42:10.2586 1:09.3540 42:10.6247 1:09.3999 10 Jones 42:29.2260 1:09.3566 11 Seton 42:34.7156 1:10.4195 12 Weel 13 Crompton 42:35.1338 1:10.0627 14 Larkham 42:37.3209 1:10.5231 42:37.9751 1:10.6946 15 Baird 42:38.1770 1:10.1790 16 Gardner 42:40.6965 1:10.1791 Wills 17 42:42.9007 1:09.9177 18 Romano 19 McConville 42:43.1808 1:10.4894 20 Longhurst 42:44.0400 1:10.0840 42:51.0608 1:10.3287 Tratt 21 22 Wilson 34 laps 1:10.5757 Perkins 23 34 laps 1:10.1463 24 McLean 34 laps 1:10.6268 25 J. Richards 34 laps 1:10.0936 26 Elleiy 34 laps 1:09.8910 27 Radisich 34 laps 1:10.4504 28 White 33 laps 1:12.1938 29 Bowe 33 laps 1:09.5606 DNF Johnson 26 laps 1:10.5134 DNF Morris 22 laps 1:10.6145 DNF Lowndes 0 laps Rim 3(35 IIMl 44:31.7508 T.09.3453 1 Skaife 44:32.0613 1:09.0802* 2 Bright 44:32.7584 1:09.7706 3 Murphy 4 S. Richards 44:34.0999 1:09.6233 5 Ambrose 44:37.9010 1:09.6882 44:38.3529 1:09.7998 6 T. Kelly 44:39.0424 1:09.7043 7 Besnard 44:39.2826 1:09.9575 8 Tander 44:39.7634 1:10.0132 9 Ingall 44:40.3347 1:10.3504 10 Jones 44:41.1513 1:10.0037 11 Seton 12 Johnson 44:43.4830 1:10.1192 13 Bargwanna 44:43.9368 1:10.4635 14 Wilson 44:45.7381 1:09.8669 15 Crompton 44:45.9903 1:10.3520 44:46.4759 1:10.6586 16 Ellery 17 Larkh am 44:46.8608 1:10.4232 44:47.2514 1:10.4347 18 Perkins 44:51.0871 1:10.4983 19 McLean 20 Longhurst 44:51.4599 1:10.6088 44:52.3308 1:10.6429 21 Tratt 44:52.9431 1:11.0541 22 Baird 23 J. Richards 44:53.2064 1:10.4135 45:00.5740 1:10.3603 24 Gardner 45:06.5620 1:10.2259 25 Bowe 26 Wills 34 laps 1:10.8078 27 White 34 laps 1:12.8464 28 Romano 34 laps 1:10.7876 29 McConville 29 laps 1:10.9756 DNF Weel 22 laps 1:10.3484 DNF Lovmdes 17 laps 1:09.8115 DNF Morris 11 laps 1.T1.5874 DNF Radisich 7 laps 1:10.7343

46

ON 3 7 4 4 11 3 4 4 5 9 5 4 7 14 6 14 10 7 5 6 6 7 3 7 13 4 9 4 9 7 5 7 9 5 7 5 7 9 11 9 10 8 7 12 6 8 5 16 17 6 10 19 19 13 14 16 8 10 4 23 8 7 5

6 11 5 9 8 10 7 7 5 6 6 13 10 15 17 32 5 17 7 16 6 9 8 6 26 9 6

The leader of Castrol Perkins Racing; The addition of Steven Richards to the Perkins squad has proved to be a good choice. The 2000 Canberra winner heads to the Nation’s Capital eighth in points in an (Ptioto by Dirk Klynsm ilti) ever-improving Commodore. continued from page 45 nut. Look on the bright side, at least they weren’t melting engines quicker than Chemoybl as was the case in 2001!

I

Race 3(35 laps) By race three, everybody was getting anxious to hit the various hotel pools of Darwin and the associated parties, but there was still 35 laps to deal with.

Bright got the all-important jump this time over Skaife and led until pitting at the end oflap three, along with Tander and Ambrose.

Skaife pushed on until the end of lap six and after an eight second stop (I), he shced back onto the road and held the inside line into turn one to cover his team-mate.

Game over.

The duo ran around five seconds in front of the Kmart cars, Kelly leading Murphy until he missed a gear coming onto the straight.

‘Toddler’ was struggling all weekend with a nerve problem in his shoulder and just pushing on was an effort. Besnard slipped by an ailing Ambrose behind the Kmart kids to move into fourth.

Then things started happening.

Lowndes’s car lunched another engine and the rest of the race was shaping up to be a snoozefest until ‘divine intervention’in the form of the Safety Car on lap 25 for a grass fire, caused by Paul Romano running off the road and lighting things up, so to speak. Only in Darwin do things like that occur ...

So that gave us a bit of a race on the re-start two laps later. Kelly was slow to get away and got swamped, passed by Richards and Ambrose. The Castrol and Pirtek cars had a dice for a while before Richo went off in chase of the TWR cars, though it was too late. The

V

consolation for Richo was that he was far happier with the progress made in looldng after the rear tyres, so there was something other than more championship points to take away from the weekend.

Skaife led home Bright, Murphy, Richards, Ambrose, Kelly, Besnard, Tander, Ingall(a super charge through the field) and Jones. Bowe had gone off-roading on two separate occasions to spoil what had been shaping up as a good weekend, while Bargwanna had a brake-lock-up-induced spin to drop him out of the 10 to 13th.

Radisich again had a shocker, dropping onto seven cylinders(who said anything about Chernobyl...) while Seton and Johnson ran home 11th and 12th.

Skaife’s title lead is now 477 points, though with a decent fistful of points on offer in the Stegbar 400 in Canberra on the Queen’s Birthday weekend, it’s not worth not flicking the remote control to ‘on’ because you just never know when there’s a reverse-grid race and a lot of concrete around ...

Race 2 flyers: Paul Weel and Neil Crompton, above, worked their way up to the back of the top 10 in race two, but both are having seasons not really worth writing home about.

(Pholo by Dirk Klynsmith)

Points after Skaife 1044, Murphy 577, Ambrose SOS’, T.Kelly 459, Bright 427, Lowndes 403, Tander 401, S.Richards 398, Johnson 273, Longhurst 257, Bowe 241, Besnard 226, Bargwanna 218, Perkins 202, Ingall 199, Seton 192, Larkham 190, Radisich 189, Jones 185, McConville 148, Baird 146, Crompton 132, Weel 128, Wilis 127, R.Kelly117, Ellery 102, Wilson 92, Faulkner 91, Forbes 85, Tratt 81, McLean/Gardner 62, S.White 43, Ritter 36, Morris 29, McDougall 24, Romano -82. # Romano's score includes 150 penalty for Phillip Island driving infringement motorspoEt naims

Murchison and Hocking Motorsport break through for win; McColl closes in on title

by AARON NOONAN WE have a fight on our hands in the Holden Australian Drivers’ Championship, after Christian Murchison took Hocking Motorsport to its first win in Formula Holden in a 13year association with the class at Hidden Valley.

It was the West Aussie’s first win the class since Mallala 2000, though it wasn’t a complete sweep hy the Reynard 98D driver.

Stewart McColl, a winner at Eastern Creek, took out the other win in the Ralt Australia Reynard, closing to within seven points of team-mate, and championship leader. Will Power.

Right from the beginning of the weekend, the heat was going to be an issue, and qualifying proved it.

McColl was fastest early, but only ran four laps before parking with overheating problems that were later sorted with a head gasket change. That left Murchison to plough around and bang in a lm04.2400s to take pole.

“I’ve always been the one getting pipped to pole by himdredths of a second!” smiled Murcho, adding that the Holden V6 powerplant had hit 125 degrees, close to “melting point.”

Power lined up third,just twotenths off pole, though the championship leader had torn up a comer and front wing in an earlier practice session (“that’ll cost 10 grand ...” he added). That put him clear of Peter Hackett, whose Cactus/Murphy machine missed the best part of practice with a vapour lock and then a broken gear selector mechanism.

Team-mate Peter Hill was fifth, seven-tenths off pole, as the M29 May 2002

Finally! Christian Murchison, top, broke through for Hocking Motorsport’s first win, whiie the Ralt team-mates, Stewart McColl, left, and Will Power, above, continued to score strong points and lead the title chase.Akihiro Asai, below, survived this incident with Peter Hill to finish the races.

(Photos by Dirk Klynsmith and James Smith)

ONE-ll driver continues to improve and work his way up the order.

Race one saw McColljump to the lead from the start, though Murchison closed in and moved by on lap three, only to have the Safety Car hit the circuit on lap eight when Roger Oakeshott planted his machine in the wall.

On the lap 14 restart, McColl was determined to hit turn one in front, which he did, though only after going around the outside of Murchison and braking hard and deep.

That was all he needed to do, going on to win by 1.8s over Murchison, followed by Hackett, Akihiro Asai(who survived a lap one move from Hill that resulted in the latter retiring), and the everimproving Nelson Hartley.

So, where was Power? He was in pitlane after smoke had begun to billow in the race’s early stages, prompting an early retirement. A

tappet gasket had split, though it was repaired for race two, which was dominated by Murchison.

The former NRC driver gave Hocking Motorsport its first race and round win with a strong win over McColl, who had a spin while chasing his former housemate, though did set the fastest lap of the weekend in the second race.

A high-speed run off-road gave Hackett plenty to worry about on lap two, though the F3 Champ was happier with his machine to take fourth and some more valuable championship points.

Power was ahead in third, though was passed by McColl with

three laps to go.

Terry Clearihan picked up the Silver Star honours for the weekend, closing the SS points lead between Oakeshott and second-placed Rohan Carrig to just two points.

There’s no doubting that the battle for this year’s Gold Star is a much closer one than the category’s doubters could have ever imagined. Oran Park is next on the calendar in support to the Konica V8 Supercar Series, with just seven points separating Power and

McColl.

Points:Power 82, McColl 75, Murchison 56, Hill 53, Hackett 50.

47

Monaco GP

DC's HappyI Ne F it seems to spectators that a year is a long time between wins,it must seem an eternity for drivers.

For David Coulthard, a winless 12 months came to an end with a convincing, if not actually emphatic, win in the 2002 Monaco Grand Prix. The locally-based driver, who owns a hotel in the Principality, took and narrow win from Michael Schumacher in a tense race. The Scot’s 12th career win came just after a year after his 11th, at Austria last season, and was the first win for anyone not named Schumacher this year.

The German family completed the podium, Michael taking second from Ralf, the yoimger Schu delayed by a late tyre stop for a delaminating tyre.

Ironically, Juan Montoya was stopped by an engine failure.

‘Ironically’, because the BMW engines are usually a paragon of reliability and, mid-race, it looked more likely he would win the race than Coulthard, whose MercedesBenz engine was blowing a blue and ominous-looking haze, ^ut the BMW blew, the Benz did not, and DC won ...

It was clear incars qualifying the Michelin had anthat advantage over the Bridgestone opposition - and it would transfer to the race.

Montoya was on pole position and so it was obvious that there was nothing much wrong with the Williams, but on Sunday it became clear that there was a weakness.

The team’s launch control and traction control systems were not

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48

molorsporl news

r^AULOISES I ’£0RMULA ONE ^ ●-S .

uv Year

David Coulthard and McLaren have endured a tough start to the 2002 season - but they managed to turn all that around with a convincing all-the-way win in Monaco.

JOE SAWARD reports from sun-drenched Monte Carlo

quite as good as those of McLaren.

That was clear at the start as Coulthard hurtled away from the grid to be ahead of Montoya before they got to the first corner. After that Montoya found he could stay ahead of Michael Schumacher without too much difficulty. The pair remained close together for lap after lap, Michael trying to find a-way through, but Juan-Pablo holding him off.

The two were bottled up behind Coulthard for a few laps as David struggled with what appeared to be initial understeer - indeed, his front Michelins were graining.

It took several struggling laps, with Juan and Michael almost tripping over him, before they cleaned up and began to perfoimi again.

Around lap 41 Montoya began to

slow. His Michelins were shot.

Coulthard’s were not...

But Montoya did not give way.

“It was quite entertaining to watch Juan,” Michael said later.

“He was clipping a few barriers, locking up, going sideways. He was overdriving a bit. Sometimes I thought that he was going to hit something and if I was staying too close to him it could be a problem, so I didft’t. But he kept his concentration.”

Montoya would probably have pitted around lap 50 but on lap 47 the engine lost power, white smoke belched from the back of the car and that was the end of it.

By then, Michael had made his pit stop and was flying, so much so that when DC pitted, he immediately had his mirrors full of Ferrari.

For the last third of the race Michael sat on David’s tail but there was nothing he could do to pass the Scotsman. David did not put a foot wrong all afternoon.

There had been some worries earlier in the race that the McLaren’s Mercedes engine would continued on page 51

A local businessman meets royal family; Coulthard, who owns a hotel In Monte Carlo, got to kiss the trophy again with his second Monaco win.

He held off Schumacher late in the race, far left, but his win was set up by a bullet getaway into Ste Devote corner, right (Pholos by Marsh/Bothwall and SuHon-lmages)

29 May 2002

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FTER the Austrian Grand Prix, the whole world (quite literally) was talking about Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.

The pygmies of New Guinea were discussing it over roast missionary: in Fiji, they were drinking their cava and talking about Ferrari with their tongues numbed: and even in the bombed out ruins of Afghanistan, warlords were tuning in to satellite TV to catch up on what had been going on at the A1 Ring.

Everyone had an opinion on team orders and probably somewhere people ended up punching each other over the subject.

In Monaco, like it or not,the fragility of Formula 1 success illustrated why Ferrari did as it did in Austria. Suddenly Michelin came up with a tyre that left the Bridgestone boys and girls humbled and we had a WilliamsBMW on pole position - and by a decent margin as well. Monaco, they will tell you, is where a driver can make the difference but it certainly did not look that way on Saturday in Monte Carlo.

Michael Schumacher was not on the pace and not even he could muscle his car around quickly enough to make it to the front of iihe grid. Juan Montoya was on pole and David Coulthard was second fastest in his McLaren\ Mercedes.

They say that in Monaco 80 percent of the race is done in .. qualifying because overtaking is jUjliyMfttticult in the race, and it was wonder, therefore, that ^^Rj^kyftoya was delighted with the ^^B^utcome. So too were the Williams engineers, because n Monaco is one place where

horsepower is not that important and the handling of the car is a vital element of success.

"There you go," said the Williams engineers (off the record)."We told you the chassis was not bad."

"There you go," said the people at McLaren (off the record)"Look at what we can do when horsepower is not the issue."

"There you go," said the people at Ferrari. "This is why we did what we had to do in Austria.

When the package is not right we can be beaten."

And so they can.

As is normal at Monaco, there were cries about the problem of traffic but no-one seemed to think it had made that much difference to the overall scheme of things. Coulthard might have got a little closer to Montoya than he managed but otherwise, it was not an issue.

Michael Schumacher seemed a little out of sorts all weekend. It must not be nice to be booed by your fans who are gathered on the slopes of the hillside by the Grimaldi Palace. But being the professional that he is, he took it on the chin.

"We kept saying that it can turn around very quickly," he said. "I think we can be reasonably competitive tomorrow and if not then we have to drive home and see how many points we can score."

Not wishing to be nasty to Ferrari, one has to say that seeing someone else at the front was a massive boost for the whole of Formula 1. Five Michael Schumacher wins in six races and the World Cup soccer competition on the horizon had meant that interest in the sport

M

even bigger shock if not had been waning. But suddenly, the paddock was all abuzz once disgracefully baulked by Felipe ; 5. n again.

Massa during the final minute^^ It was clear that Michelin had the session. Well up on his’ 'r the advantage and given the fact previous best, an angry Webber that by the end of qualifying looked to have had several grid eight of the top 10 were Michelin spots snatched from him.

VI cars underlined that the fyres are Alex Yoong felt that he mi^ht a key element in FI this year. have matched the jagq^ri^tpp If Formula 1 team bosses always he had not crashedlpt the first bang on about success coming corner pf hfs first ft^rig lap! v * ■I" n when all the elements of the Down in the Minardi pit, they ' technical package are in place could have put a frying pariij^'. and here was evidence of that. top of Paul Sto^dart's head ari^f^ The top six slots on the grid an egg would have fried in it... .ivj-ai featured the top three teams: ' . More than one critic vyas able n Williams, McLaren, Ferrari, ‘ tOpoint'outthatNikiLauda%j^ V- -'i.

Williams, Ferrari, McLaren. They conteptlpn that the Jags are i^’’ were all cbVered by less than a aerodyrtSmic trouble seemed tb second. The performances were be contradlictpd by the team's all solid, although Kimi . efforts at a track where■ f Raikkonen might have done ^ mechanical grip is the key. Big ; better had he not ccaitiped his budget team in big trouble... own style by crashing heqyjly far Qualifying and racing are; of too early in the sessipps oiVifj: course, different things but ,^t Thursday.

Monaco, overtaking is really _ Renault Sport took adv^fage tough unless you have a of Thursday to get a little considerable ^vantkg^ver the publicity and Jarno Trulli spent a opposition.-Michael SoH^i^achel'.^ h. day being the herp but we knew may be a fovyering t^pnt .on the from the rest of the time sheet streets of that^City tbaf b&^psed' ● V . that there was little that should to call home but Mpntoyii'ts.np , . ; be read into the results (apart slouch on the streets either.:In |iii! from the fact that the Michelins career, he has won at Lohg BePc.b^' I were good). The Renauits ended ..and bn the streets of V^ancbUiMK*^^. up seventh and eighth on the He has tvvice woMlie tifamd PrikT^^.'T. <fe Pau, an aohievemeht which is grid, with Trulli a little way clear of Jenson Button.

■ j unriyallfetliin the last IS.years. So?.. he ^gjf>^ to be very hard ' Ninth and 10th were Ijhe two ●J Toyotas, split by a smid^bn,^ to beat on Sunday. .*1 which left Mika Salo ahead of Prior to Monaco a lot of Allan McNish. Giancarlo Fisichella drivers had predicted that was 11th in his Jordan-Honda there would be another and it was the Italian who led the Ferrari whitewash (or perhai^s redwash is a better class of (Bridgestone-shod) hopefuls which consisted of word) but here we had a most unusual front row.

J assorted Arrows, Saubers, Jordans and BARs. "Racing drivers have | balls," said David I Minardi looked quite useful and Coulthard when asked to 1 Mark Webber beat both Jaguars explain. "But none of I and would have pulled off an them are crystal. Wo ere ■ not very good at seeing ■ what the future is goin^^| to bring.

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FORMULA ONE not last. On lap 30'the car began to smoke from time to time. But it did not blow and the Mercedes engineers were able to trace the problem to an oil transfer valve.

This was not functioning properly but, using the team’s

Monacan Grand Prix I,' ML May 25 2002

HiEEBS!

BMW\WI!iamsF1 Team 1:16.676 I |3 D Coulthard West McLaren Merced^ :1:17.068 0.392 1 M Schumacher ■Scuderia Ferrari Madboro | d:17.il8 +0.442 1 R Schumacher BMWWilliamsFI Team '1:17.274 + 0.598 |2 R Barrichello Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro i 1:17.357 0.681 j [4 K Raikkonen \Atest McUten Mercies | 1:17.660 + 0.984 j UJTrulli Mad Seven Renau# FI Team 1:17.710 +1.034

telemetry systems, the valve activation could be fixed and the problem went away.

David’s race was a very good one - and he knew it.

“I’m so pleased,” he said. “We have had a difficult start to the

season and everybody has been working extremely hard. I was giving 100 percent all the time.

This track is so unforgiving.”

Afterwards the McLaren men continued on page 52

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Panasonic Toyota Radtig i 1:18.292 + 1.616 I iOHL Jordan Honda .1:18.342 + 1.666 [20 H H Frentzen Orange Arrows 1:18.607 + 1.931 8 F Massa , jSauber Pelronas 1:19.006 + 2.330 11 J Vilicneuvc lucky strike BAR Honda 1:19.252 + 2.576 21 E Bernoldi Orange Arrows 1:19.412 +2.736

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DHL Jordan Honda 1:19.‘161 ~ +2-785 \7 N Heldfeld

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I’ve got those yellow things behind me: Heinz-Harald Frentzen scored another point for Arrows and even topped the Sunday warm-up. Above, he leads one of his former teams. Jordan, which lined up in order eariy in the race, below, until Takuma Sato almost took out team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella again.

(Photos by Mareh/Bothwel! and Sutton-lmages)

+ 2.824

Lucky Strike BAR Honda 1:19.569 +2,693 23 M Webber KL Minardi Asiatech 1:19.674 +2.998 7 P Do La Rosa .Jaguar Racing 1:19.796 +3.120

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Jaguar Racing 1:20.139 +3.463 |22 A Yoong :kl Minardi Asiatech 1:21.599 +4.923

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29 my 2002

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51

Monaco GP continued from page 51

but was way clear of Trulli. Ralf decribed the car as “reasonable” but reckoned it was not quick were quick to point out that this is enough to win the race. not likely to be the start of a major Tyre wear was more than he had McLaren revival. The team expected it would be and so Ralf believes it has a limited number of pitted on lap 50 and then a few chances to win races this year, laps later he was back in the pits given the current package, and it again when his left rear intends to make the most of them. delaminated. The tyre war is Monaco was the first and the team forcing the two companies to go dehvered. It was a great effort and softer and softer on their rubber the men from Woking were and that means that at places like justifiably proud of what they had Monaco(where it is usually an achieved. advantage to stay out as long as “This demonstrates the depth possible) there is a danger that the and commitment we have to tyres will wear out or suffer a winning,” said Ron Dennis. failure. It was not the only tyre to There might have been more come apart during the weekend; points for Kimi Raikkonen had it Button suffered one such failure in not been for the young Finn being shunted from behind by Rubens practice and in the race Ralf, Mika Salo and Mark Webber all suffered Barrichello when he was running similar troubles, Webber’s a front sixth on lap 40. delamination that spoiled an Barrichello reckoned that , Raikkonen had shut the door on , otherwise brilliant race.

Having been humbled in him but the TV cameras suggested (as did Kimi)that Barrichello had qualifying, Bridgestone ended the simply made a mistake and driven day convinced that its tyre choice into the back of him. Both cars had been quick enough to win. pitted and, while Rubens was able “Our top cars clearly had more to get going again, Raikkonen’s car pace but we were unable to take was examined and then repaired.

- advantage of it because of the The rear wing was replaced and he difficulty of overtaking at Monaco,” was eventually sent out again but said Bridgestone’s Hisao after one exploratory lap he called Suganuma. it a day. There was no point in This was a valid point because, going on and taking risks. when they were free and running, Neither Barrichello nor Barrichello and Schumacher were Raikkonen were really in the able to record some very fast laps, which were a second faster than picture for a podium finish, even before their shunts, as they were anyone else could manage. Indeed, running around fighting for sixth Barrichello set the fastest lap of the race near the end. Cordthard’s place behind Ralf Schumacher in the second Williams-BMW and best lap was only the fourth fastest Jamo Trulli in his Renault. of the race. The three were split by Giancarlo Fisichella’s JordanRalf’s race was pretty dull. He started fourth and moved to third Honda, which was there at the end when Montoya retired. He was of the race again in fifth place,just never really a threat to Michael behind Trulli’s Renault.

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Jamo made a good start and jmnped from seventh on the grid to fifth. And there he stayed imtil Montoya retired. This moved him to fourth and he was able to hold off Fisichella in the closing laps.

Button’s race was not a good one.

He jumped the start and then lifted off and dropped to the back of the field because of the way in which the software is configured. He was

then given a drive-through penalty and by the time all of this had happened he was down in 21st place. He tried to work his way up the order but, on lap 52, he collided with Olivier Panis at Ste Devote and that was the end of the story.

Fisichella was quite lucky to get to the flag in that his team-mate Takuma Sato very nearly had him offfor the second time this year. Fisi

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52

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FORMULA ONE rvior^Acc a r » t?

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n got away in front of the Jaguars and then, stuck in a queue behind Panis(BAE), both Saubers and Bemoldi, he made his one stop early. With a clear track he leap frogged the lot, into ninth(which would have been eighth, or even seventh hy the end) but had to make an unplanned stop when a front tyre delaminated. You can’t do much about that.

It was a Minardi travelling like a Minardi hasn’t travelled for a long time; BAEs, Saubers, an Arrows and Jags(some distance) behind on a day when all the other FI Monaco rookies walled their cars at least once. It deserved a result...

BAE’s misery was compounded

by Jacques Villeneuve, whose car went dead at the start and, by the time the Canadian got going, he was virtually two laps behind the leaders.

The hard men at play: Juan Montoya and Michael Schumacher, above, battled hard early in the race.

A hugely positive day was spoiled slightly by scrutineering questions after the event over electronic irregularities for 'Trulli.

As we closed for press it seemed these may cost Jamo his place because a missing seal is treated as a serious business by the FIA...

A good weekend for the sport (thanks to Michelin’s good work) after a period when things have not been looking too positive. Eoll on

The car in front is a ...

The Toyotas ran in team order during the race, left, though Allan McNish and Mika Salo crashed separately, later.

At last, a finish: Ralf Schumacher,'be/ow/eft, finally scored an F1 finish at Monaco, taking third.

Wow. Nice flag: Please don’t write or ring us.

It’s Monaco in Spring and

RESULTS Monaco GR May 26 2002,78 laps/262.626kms

1 2 3

Coulthard M. Schumacher R. Schumacher

4 Trulli 5 Fisichella 6 Frentzen 7 Barrichello 8 Heidfelij 3 Irvine 10 de la Rosa 11 Webber 12 Bemoldi Retirements Salo Massa Pauls Button Montoya Villeneuve Raikkonen Yoong Sato McNish

69 laps 63 laps 51 laps 51 laps 46 laps 44 laps 41 laps 29 laps 22 laps 15 laps

lh45m39.Q55 Ih45m40.104 Ih46m56.504 77 laps 77 laps 77 laps 77 laps 76 laps 76 laps 76 laps 76 laps 76 laps Brakes Spun off Collision Collision Engine Clutch Collision Spun off Spun off Spun off

Fastest lap: Barrichello, on lap 68, lm18.024s Drivers' points: M.Schumacher 60, R, Schumacher and Mo 27, Coulthard 20, Barrichello 12, Button 8, Heidfeld 5, Raikkonen and Fisichella 4, Irvine, Massa and Trulli 3, Webber, Frentzen and Salo 2.

Constructors' points: Ferrari 72, Williams/BMW 54, McLaren/Mercedes 24, Renault 1 \, Sauber/Petronas 8, Jordan/Honda 4, Jaguar/Cosworth 3, Minardi/Asiatech, Toyota and Arrows/Cosworth 2.

girls dress like this, OK? (p/iotos by Marsh/Bolhwell and Sutlon-lmages)

had got into a bit of a tangle while trying to take advantage of an early overtaking manouevre that Frentzen pulled on Mika Salo on lap 19. But he had to bralce and lost momentum and so Sato went ahead.

It soon became clear- that Fisichella was faster and the team asked Takuma to move over. This he tried to do in the tunnel on lap 23.

“While I was trying to make space for him I picked up dust, slid and lost control of the car.”

The wrecked car bounced off the wall into Fisichella’s path. He dodged to avoid it but then the wreck came back across the road again and Fisi had to change direction again. But he made it through and went on to produce a second points-scoring result for Jordan.

While the team had asked Takusan to move over, his choice to do so in the turmel was, perhaps, not a wise decision ...

There was a close finish as well for sixth place with Frentzen holding off Barrichello. Both men had had disrupted races, Eubens with his crash with Eaikkonen and Frentzen thanks to a refuelling malfunction which meant that he had to do two pit stops. It was 29 May 2002

nonetheless a strong result for Arrows.

Bemoldi’s weekend was less successful(as usual) and in the course of the afternoon he was punted off by Felipe Massa as the two men fought over 12th place on lap 28. They got going again but Massa was then penalised by the stewards for causing the crash. He ended the day with a rear brake failm-e and a huge crash into the barriers at Ste Devote. The angle and speed ofimpact were frightening but Massa emerged unhrrrt.

“It was a big impact,” he said.

Huge would have been a better description...

Toyota also failed to finish either car, which was a shame. McNish

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made a mistake early on and hit the wall at Ste Devote while Salo suffered a brake failure at the top of the hill and bounced off into the barriers - deliberately Yes, the quick-thinking Finn threw the car left as soon as he realised what was gorng on ...

Of the rest, the hard luck story had to be that of Mark Webber.

Speed and strategy-wise Minardi’s rookie ace had a cracker. The launch-control worked and so he

NEW NSW STOCKIST GMP RACING PRODUQS NEW QIO STORE 2/109 AIROS ST MINTO NSW 37A FENTON ST OAKLEIGH VIC 3/26 EXPO CRT ASHMORE OLD Tel: 07 5531 0181 Tel: 03 9543 6222 Tel: 02 9820 4255 Qmail@gmpracingproducts.com.au wvw.gmpcocingproducts.com.au S3

Monaco GP

What Coulthard Q: The pace was relentless you were under pressure almost the whole way.

DC: Yeah, as you saw, during the first few laps I opened up a small gap then my tyres were graining, incredibly, and I thought I was going to really be in big trouble.

I dropped, I think two or three seconds on some of the laps, and then once they cleaned up, they came back.

And yes, as you say, I had to keep pushing and this is the sort of track where you can feel quite under control and then just one mistake can take you close to the barrier and thankfully I didn't make any mistakes really except at the chicane where you have a bit more room to do so, and I only touched one barrier during the race (at the swimming pool), but otherwise it was a perfect race.

Comments from the post-race conference

couldn't see anything ... or what they actually said was that there was no problem, so whether that means that they could see something but they felt it wasn't a problem...

And then it seemed to clear up, so that was OK. There wasn't that much smoke when it was smoking.

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Q: You mentioned traffic just now; how bad was that?

DC: I think I probably got the best of it. I definitely lost a little bit of time but judging by the gap to those behind me, it seemed to open up more in traffic.

It's always going to be difficult here. Some of the guys chose to weave a bit longer before letting you past, but that's always going to be a feature of Monaco and I guess I would be complaining about it a bit more if I'd finished second. I'm just enjoying the fact that we've won the Grand Prix because obviously so far this year it's looked pretty difficult. We felt that this was our best chance and everything's worked for us, so I'm just going to enjoy this moment.

Q: How much of a panic was there about the smoke?

DC: I radioed to say that 1 thought I was losing a little bit of power and then after that I saw some of the smoke but the engineers told me that they.

Monaco Grand Prix Grid Position/Driver

Positions lap by lap

May 26 2002 Nat Car

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1 Juan Pablo Montoyai COL Williams' 2 David Coulthard

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3 Michael SchumacherjGER, Ferrari 4 I Ralf Schumacher

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6 Kimi Raikkonen

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8 Jenson Button

GBR Renault ' FIN Toyota

10 Allan McNish

GBR Toyota

11 Giancarlo Fisichella

ITA Jordan

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14 Jacques Villeneuve ;CAN'BAR j 15'Enrique Bernoldi

BRA Arrows

16 Takuma Sato

JPN Jordan

17 Nick Heidfeld

GER Sauber

18 Olivier Ranis

FRA.BAR

19 Mark Webber

AUS: Minardi I

j 20 Pedro De La Rosa

lESPi Jaguar

121 Eddie Irvine

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! 22 Alex Yoong

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22 motorsporl news

FORMULA ONE

WEBBER’S

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GP DIARY

hat was so nearly a huge result. Eighth on the road would have been a fair reward for what was without doubt Minardi's best race weekend for a long, long time. . Thanks to some progress of our own and a great gain by Michelin, there was to be no racing around at the back waiting for other cars to fail. We were genuinely quicker around the streets of Monaco than the Saubers, BARs, Bernoldi's Arrows and, oh yes, the Jaguars.

Despite starting near the back (19th) courtesy of Felipe Massa's appalling track manners, we reconfirmed in the warm-up that we were quicker than the group in front and schemed a race strategy that worked - perfectly. Until the left front delaminated and I had to make an unscheduled stop.

Qualifying had been a huge disappointment after the form we (and Michelin) had shown on Thursday. / It was an almost perfect day. No real problems and 42 laps of worthwhile set-up worlmroduced a lap time that surprised even me.

When I came in and the guys told me we were sixth, which eventually became eighth for the day, I was stunned - because I felt there was still more to come in the car.

While a number of the teams do run low-ish fuel at some point on the first day, I never have (although Alex has). This time, with things going so well and qualifying being so critical here, we did just that - it gave us time to think about further improvements once we'd seen . how the car reacted on low fuel. It wasn't low-low, but certainly less than half fuel load.

The only debate we really had to resolve was a small hydraulic problem related to the new power steering, which I planned to run all weekend.

do much - and the car skated into the fence.

The front left suspension was pretty second-hand and the left rear had taken a fair knock too. It meant a bit of work for the guys but as usual they did it well and we were ready for qualifying.

It was clear that Michelin had a fast tyre this weekend and that the track would get better as qualifying went on, so we were genuinely hopeful of making a bit of an impact. It was never going to be eighth as it was on Thursday, but there were a number of Bridgestone cars that looked beatable, apart from our regular target, the Jaguars.

My second run was a reasonable one, which put us 16th at the time, but just as I set off on the third we noticed that a stone had holed an oil radiator. Fortunately I hadn't left pit lane, so the car could be wheeled back and worked on. To change the cooler and re-pressurise the system in the time the guys had was a big ask and it seemed we would run out of time, but with n

Monaco

four minutes to go they told me to get my helmet on!

The car was just great and we were already a couple of tenths up on the first sector when I came up on Massa, who'd done his final timed lap and chose to cruise in, not really worrying about following cars - to hell with anyone else.

It screwed my lap (and those of others, I hear) and a rare opportunity to really make a statement. I was well pissed off I can tell you. At Monaco a couple of spots can make a huge difference to race day and, on the evidence, it cost me five or six.

We could well have been in front of Jacques Villeneuve, on 14 ...

W

e ran a hefty 90kgs of fuel in the warm-up and reconfirmed our pace, so we decided on an aggressive strategy. We would start with plenty of fuel, but if I found myself bottled up behind the group in front. I'd make an early stop, have relatively little fuel to add and a clear track to run at a faster pace.

Massa, who'd done his final timed lap and chose to cruise in, not really worrying about following cars-to hell with anyone else

The payHDff would come when they all stopped later on.

It worked perfectly.

I had to laugh. On the way to the grid Pedro de la Rosa quipped that my "two-stop" warm-up time had been good. The Jaguar guys were convinced our speed was due to a light two-stop fuel load ...

The launch control worked as it should and I beat the Jags away and almost had a go at Olivier Panis. Things panned out as we'd expected - me stuck behind a queue and held up - so we pitted as planned, on lap 28.

From there 1 got a pretty good, clear run and, as they all made their own stops, we moved up and up.

It was looking so good. Ninth on the road. Would have been eighth, genuinely ahead of a number of other teams, so the delamination of the front tyre, on lap 63, was really disappointing. The team, and I, deserved that result this weekend.

Straight after the race the Michelin guys weren't sure what had happened. Two or three rears had given problems, but this was the only front. Certainly the Michelin guys have made a big gain, but I suppose you'd say they might just have gone a fraction too far in risk factor.

Still, even though the result wasn't as it should have been, the team were rapt. Everyone along pit lane knows how things were and so it was a pretty up-beat post-race garage. It was Stoddy's birthday too, so there was cake and champagne flying everywhere. All up, not a bad end to the day!

s

aturday's practice didn't go entirely to plan. Late in the morning's second session, Eddie Irvine had a big backwards shunt into the armco at the Swimming Pool complex. When I came round soon after, there were no oil flags at the posts prior to the scene, just one at the spot itself - too late to

29 MiW 2002

55

Indianapolis 500

Say Hello to Hoik REPORT by PHIL MORRIS

I’ll tell you for the 86th time ... Junqueira leads the spread-out field at (Photo by Donald Miralie/Getty Images) the beginning of the 500 miles.

L

IGHTNING struck twice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, and again,it climbed the fences to celebrate.

Helio Castroneves took his second Indy 500 win in a row, with the race finishing in controversial fashion behind the Safety Car. “I did it; I did it again,” an emotional Castroneves said as he was handed the traditional winner’s bottle of milk.

“It’s going to taste twice better.

Guys, this is unbelievable. Guys, I love you.

“I have no words, man. I don’t

run to the end of the race without pitting for any more fuel. His last stop was on lap 158, meaning that he had to run 42 laps to make it home.

The Marlboro Dallara/Chevrolet took over the lead and was in fuel conservation mode to the end, with the Hollywood/Nunn machine of Felipe Giaffone closing. His good friend Giaffone made an attempted passing manoevure on lap 197, but got bottled up behind 'Tracys team mate Dario Franchitti, allowing Tracy to get a run on him and take second place.

The Canadian went after

know what to say anymore. This is just a dream come true," The Brazilian’s second ’500 win

Castroneves and was setting him up for a winning pass on lap 199 when the caution flags flew after

was the 12th for Roger Penske’s famous team, and the first back-toback since A1 Unser won in 197071.

The 200-lapper was one of the strangest races seen at the Brickyard in quite some time. With the return of the cream of the CART crop, the field was the strongest it’s been since 1995, and one of‘their’ men, Paul Tracy, was involved in the controversial

finish.

But to analyse the finish, you have to look at the critical element that created the ‘moment’. That critical element came on lap 177 under yellow flags, when Castroneves elected to stay out on the road and not pit, thus trying to SB

rookie Laurent Redon and 1996 Indy winner Buddy Lazier collided.

Tracy maintained that he had passed the Penske driver before the yellow lights came on, both ontrack and inside the cockpit of his car, though officials put Castroneves in front of the queue that ambled across the line under caution flags to end the race.

Drivers do not race back to the start-finish line after a caution starts in Indy Racing League competition, unlike NASCAR,and so, Tracy was left to sit in second and finish there. His Team Green outfit has protested the result, with the hearing to be heard Monday US time, after MN went to press.

“The only reason he passed me, it’s because the yellow came on, and I lifted off,” Castroneves said.

“No way he could pass me if it would be outside 'Turn 3 if we were still racing. So he might have passed me on the front straightaway because I was lifting

off.

Tracy said that he feels that he was “ahead of him when it went yellow. I passed him, and I saw green.

“My interpretation of the rule is that when you are ahead of somebody when the yellow comes out, then that's your position. I know this track, a lot of the times in CART, a lot of the tracks we go to do not have timing fines and

they don’t know where the car is all the time, so you have to rely on spotters and track marshals to figure out a lot of times where"the cars are.

“But I know this track has timing lines all the way aroimd the track.

They will know exactly where the cars were when the yeUow fight came on. So, we’lljust have to wait and see. We at Team KOOL Green, we feel that we were ahead; that’s why we’ve put a protest in.”

Giaffone ran home in third place, clear of the top-finishing rookie Alex Barron and 1998 winner Eddie Cheever.

continued on page 58 motorsporl news

4 iw

Sr vs

m

INDY RACING LEAGUE

I at Indy - again!

Forget Tobey Maguire, Helio Castroneves is the reai Spiderman!

Marlboro Team Penske is simply the team to be with at the Indianapolis 500. Castroneves has a 100 percent winning record at the Brickyard with them!

(Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)

What’s a dude to do? While Castroneves drank the milk, above, Paul Tracy, below and below left, was left to wonder ‘what if?’ An appeal from Tracy’s Green team was due to be heard as MN went to press. Alex Barron, bottom, put in a strong run for Blair Racing to take fourth.

Jl

29 May 2002

Indianapolis 500

' /

Brake, brake, brake, and re-set your fuel meter: Junqueira, Giaffone, Kanaan and Raul Boesel make their first pit stops in the 500 miler, above. Tomas Scheckter, above right in front of Sam Hornish Jr, dominated for a large portion of the race, only to end up in the wall. Gil de Ferran, beiow, didn’t have the same luck as his team-mate.

(Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images) continued from page 56 “I kept getting stuck in traffic,” said Cheever.

“I don’t know what it is with A1 (Unser Jr), but every time I get behind him and he is a lap down, he holds me up, and I lose a few places. I lost a strong third place because of that. It’s getting to be tiring after Nazareth and then here at Indy.”

As is always the case at Indy, there were plenty of drivers who could have, should have, but didn’t, win the race.

Giaffone’s team-mate, Tony Kanaan, was one of the dominating forces of the first half of the race and led 23 laps, before he tripped up on oil left by polesitter Bruno Junqueira.

Junqueira’s machine was crippled with an engine or gearbox problem and Kanaan was in the wrong place at the wrong time, spinning in the oil and hitting the turn three wall.

Junqueira had led the first section of the race from pole, but stalled on his first pit-stop, dropping him to 21st, and he never recovered.

“I think I lost my gearbox, and that’s what caused the car to fail,” said the Brazilian.

“The Target car was really good at the start of the race. I was able to put some distance between me and the second-place car. I really feel that if we did not have the problem, we could have won the race today.”

Rookie Tomas Scheckter took over the lead when Kanaan SB

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dropped out, and the young South Afncan starred, dominating for the next two hours and leading 85 laps before he went too wide into turn four and ploughed into the wall.

“I don’t want to say anything broke because I’m not certain,” he said.

‘T had no control over the car. It just went straight. It wouldn’t turn.

The thing is, we could have won that.

The thing was on cruise control.”

Fellow young gun Sam Hornish Jr had diced with Scheckter early in the race, though the IRL Champ lost his chance of adding the Indy 500 to the mantlepiece when he hit the turn four wall.

“We went into the wall. We could have won. Would have, could have, should have. The car was good. I mean, we were passing. We passed Cheever and a lot of the guys right there at the end. The car was fast.

We just ruined the day early.”

The Pennzoil team repaired the damaged suspension, allowing the American to at least re-join the

race and improve his position to pick up as many championship points as possible.

Jimmy Vasser had the Bobby Rahal-owned Miller machine in sixth place when a gearbox problem sidelined him on lap 89, while Dario Franchitti had a tough day in the second Green entry. The Scot had a flat tyre early on and lost a lap, never to make it back.

The surviving Ganassi/Target cars made it home, with Jeff Ward ninth and Kenny Brack 11th, the duo struggling with the wrong gearing.

“Right from the start of the race, I felt like we had the wrong gearing in the car,” said Brack.

“It kept hitting the rev limiter really early on the straightaways.

We made a decision to come into the pits under yellow and make a gear ratio change on the car.

“The car was a lot better after they made the change, and I was able to get back on the lead lap at

the end of the race. I wish it was the Indianapolis 600 today, and we might have had a shot at winning.”

Front-row starter Robbie Buhl ran at the front in the race’s early stages, though couldn’t get a balance he was happy with, while Max Papis struggled in the third Red Bull/Cheever car with a rear brake problem.

Gil de Ferran didn’t have the luck of his team-mate. The' Brazilian lost a left rear wheel on his last pit stop and was forced to drive back to pitlane on three wheels, relegating him to 10th.

“I’ve been with the team three years, and that’s the first time that’s ever happened,” said the two-time CART Champion.

“The guys did great stops all day.

It is just unfortunate for us that we had a problem at the end. But that's the way racing is. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you don’t.”

Points; Castroneves 195, de FeiTan 169, Hornish Jr 159, Giaffone 140, Barron 109, Sharp 101, Ward 97, Unser Jr 96.

motorsporl news

t

INDY RACING LEAGUE

\

Doubling Up

I

. 01 iS

rhoiii In- DonjIJ \Uriille (jcif\ inai:c^

86th Indianapolis 500 Results - 200 laps

CAR POSNO DRIVER LAPS 3 Helio Castroneves Marlboro Dallara/Chevrolet 200 laps 2 26 Paul Tracy 7-Eleven Dallara/Chevrolet +0.0376S 21 Felipe Giaffone~~ Hollywood G Force/Chevrolet 3 +0.1285S 44 Alex Barron 4 +1.4037s Rayovac Dallara/Chevrolet 5 51 Eddie Cheever Red Bull Dallara/Nissan +2.4549S 20 Richie Hearn 6 Grill2Go Dallara/Chevrolet +3.2022 39 Michael Andretti Motorola Dallara/Chevrolet 7 + 3.5895 31 Robby Gordon 8 + 6.1206s Cingular Dallara/Chevrolet 9 Jeff Ward 9 Target G Force/Chevrolet + 7.5654s 10 6 Gil de Ferran Marlboro Dallara/Chevrolet + 28.5425s 11 22 Kenny Brack + 32.8195s Target G Force/Chevrolet 7 Al Unser Jr Corteco Dallara/Chevrolet 12 199 laps Harrah's Dallara/Chevrolet 13 14 Airton Dare 199 laps 14 55 Arie Luyendyk Meijer G Force/Chevrolet 199 laps 15 91 Buddy Lazier Coors Dallara/Chevrolet 198 laps/Accident Purex G Force/IMissan 16 24 Robbie Buhl 198 laps 310 G Force/Chevrolet 17 30 George Mack 198 laps CURB Dallara/Chevrolet 18 198 laps Billy Boat 19 27 Dario Franchitti 7-Eleven Dallara/Chevrolet 197 laps EPSON Dallara/Nissan 20 12 Shigeaki Hattori 197 laps 2 Raul Boesel Menards Dallara/Chevrolet 21 197 laps Mi-Jack Dallara/Nissan 22 34 Laurent Redon 196 laps/Accident 23 53 Max Papis Red Bull Dallara/Nissan 196 laps 24 23 Sarah Fisher Allegra Dallara/Nissan 196 laps 4 Sann Hornish Jr 25 Pennzoil Dallara/Chevrolet 186 laps 26 52 Tomas Scheckter Red Bull Dallara/Nissan 172 laps/Accident 27 Scott Sharp Delphi Dallara/Chevrolet 137 laps/Mechanical 28 17 Tony Kanaan Hollywood G Force/Chevrolet 89 laps/Accident 5 Rick Treadway 29 Sprint G Force/Chevrolet 88 laps/Accident Miller Dallara/Chevrolet 30 19 Jimmy Vasser 87 laps/Gearbox 31 33 Bruno Junqueira Target G Force/Chevrolet 87 laps/Engine 32 99 MarkDismore Western Union Dallara/Chevrolet 58 laps/Handling 33 11 Greg Ray Harrah's Dallara/Chevrolet 28 laps/Accident

f

29 Mav 2002

ROBBY Gordon again attempted the Indy 500/Charlotte 600 double on Memorial Day and did it easily, running eighth at Indy and 16th at Charlotte a few hours later.

A fuel fire, where his Cingular/Menard re-fuelling rig had its top blown clean off, delayed the fornner Indycar regular, though he pressed on to take a strong finish.

"I honestly thought we'd be a lot stronger today," he said of the '500. "I couldn't pass hardly anybody. I pulled all the wicker out of it, and then I was too loose.

"It's been a lot of fun. I feel great. I sweated a little bit, not too bad. I didn't know what the deal was going to be there in the pit fire. These guys, they can overcome. They've been doing this stuff long enough. They kept their heads straight. We didn't lose too much. We just climbed back up as best as we could. When we had that pit fire, we were up in fifth position at that point."

The team had to move down pit lane and set up on Greg Ray's refuelling rig after the Foyt driver had crashed out early in the race, which left Gordon on the track waiting to pit as the team scurried to re-organise their equipment.

Min KARTING COMING EVENTS

2 June

Cidy of Wodonga Titles — Albury Wodonga

2 June

Shane MePhee AA.eniorial — i South West

8-9 June

North West Titles — Wildura

i

15-16 June Ford Racing Australia — Winter Cup Geelong For fiirtlier infoMsiatioiu on asuy of the above events call the Victorian Karting Association

5443 6332

33621144

KKW\WG KSSOC\Al\OH

wwvv.vlia.asn.au vlca@1il40.aone.net.au 59

Rally Amentina

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Just as the 2002 Rally Argentina was looking like a grandstand finish, fate intervened, with crashes, disqualifications and a surprise winner in Carlos Sainz.

JON THOMSON reports \

I

N a drama-packed Rally Argentina, Carlos Sainz has equalled Tonuni Makinen’s record of 24 World Championship wins after the Peugeots of Marcus Gronholm and Richard Bums were excluded.

Gronholm was outed before the champagne was sprayed for receiving advice from his team when the car would not start in the morning pare ferme, while Burns collected the victor’s laurels, only to have them removed six hours later when an underweight flywheel was discovered.

It would have been the 2001 champion’s first win with Peugeot; instead it turned into one of the French maker’s bleakest moments.

Sainz’s elevation meant Fetter Solberg collected second for Subam and Colin McRae third for

Ford.

The decisions in Argentina are sure to reverberate around the sport of rallying for a long time to come.

Day 1 Tbe start rally when gotthe off to first a faltering stage was cancelled due to the enormous number of spectators crowding the roads.

Gronholm made a rapid start for Peugeot, despite running first and having some sweeping to do. But he wasn’t without his moments, going up on two wheels at high speed in stage three but managing to keep it all together and retain

the lead.

00

Burns lost time when his 206 nearly drowned in the first water splash on the stage. Ford was not enjoying such a good start, with Sainz losing power steering and team-mate McRae losing 30s in a spin in stage three.

Running first on the road was no handicap for Gronholm, with the roads cutting up badly for the later runners he was taking full advantage. Makinen had grafted his way to second ahead of Burns.

Francois Delecour had bigger problems, retiring the Mitsubishi after taking a front corner off when he hit a rock and then

rolled.

As the leg drew to a close, an almost impenetrable fog rolled in but it seemed to make little difference to Gronholm, mastering the conditions to grab a big lead.

He was helped by gearbox trouble for Makinen, enabling the Peugeot driver to finish the day with a handsome lm40s lead.

Burns’s Peugeot finished the leg just 20 seconds behind while Solberg was still in fourth, a further 6s behind.

Kankkunen had been leading the Hyundai charge in seventh but an off on a very slow corner on stage eight cost many minutes when the car became stuck on a bank with the rear wheels in the air.

Then the fog lifted and later runners were faster, with Freddy Loix taking fastest on the final stage to be in sixth just behind Sainz, while Colin McRae was languishing in 10th behind the Skoda of Toni Gardermeister.

Day 2 Ato margin of 100 seconds looked be a substantial cushion for Gronholm but that evaporated in just two stages when the Peugeot struck hydraulic trouble on the first stage of the day.

Gronholm’s lead was paired back to just 16s over Makinen who was

on a charge.

“We lost the hydraulic pressure seven kms into the first stage, so it meant we lost the throttle as well as all the diffs,” said Gronholm.

He switched to manual, costing 15 seconds, before the problem traced to a fluid leak.

There had been soul searching at Ford overnight and Sainz went motorsport news

WORLD RALLY surviving Lancer, with a loose turbo pipe on the first stage. He crawled to the end of the stage before fixing it himself.

The rash of hydraulic and gearbox software problems continued, with Solberg having a major moment on the Superspecial, when the transmission literally locked up solid after a jump.

Makinen sneaked ahead of Gronholm on the final test after winning four of the day’s nine stages. Bums was still third ahead of Solberg who was involved in his own battle with Sainz for fourth place.

McRae Sr won a couple of stages and was recovering from his early lack of speed, moving from 10th to sixth behind Sainz, while Gardemeister had the Skoda up to seventh.

Day 2 ronholm’s Sunday morning

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got off to a less than perfect start, when the Peugeot refused to fire up in pare ferme. The crew pushed it out but it took almost 20 minutes to get it running with crew members shouting instructions from the sidelines.

Winner? Me? Que? Carlos Sainz, above, started the final day in fifth, stayed out of trouble and collected his 24th career win, and first in ages.

The Lion ping: Gronhoim, left, was iooking for a showdown with Makinen before he was DQ’d for outside asstistance.

Now that’s Petter: Soiberg, below, had a career-best second piace.

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Results into the first two stages with changed settings - new springs, dampers and roll bars - but found no improvement and quickly reverted to Day I’s set-up. McRae trailed the Spaniard by nearly 90s and had no excuses for his lack of pace.

Things weren’t much better for little brother Alister in the 29 May 2002

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Carlos Sainz/Luis Moya Petter Solberg/Phil Mills Colin McRae/ Nicky Grist Marko Martin/Michael Park Toni Gardemeister/Paavo Lukander Keneth Eriksson/Tna Thorner Juha Kankkunen/Juha Repo Mister McRae.'Dauid Senior

Ford Focus Subaru Impreza Ford Focus Ford Focus Skoda Octavia Skoda Octavia WRC Hyundai Accent WRC Mitsubishi Lancer WRC

4:08;09.1 4:08:13.1 4:10:28.2 4:11:01.5 4:13:27.9 4:14:257 4:16:12.4 4:16:58.7

Drivers' Points: Granliolm 31. Gilles Panizri 20. Bums and Sainz 19. Tommi Makinon U.Soldcrg 13. C McRao 10. Ham Rovanpeto 9. Phillipe Bugalski 7,Sebastian bob G. Marko Martin 3. A McRae and Toni Gardemoistor 2. Konnoth Eriksson 1.

Manulactirrers' Foinis: Peugeot 68. Ford 41. Subaru 33. MKsubishi 6. Skoda 5. Hyundai 3.

WRC Round 6 Rally Argentina

The classic El Condor stage was the first test of the day and Gronholm overcame his problems to go fastest, retaking the lead from Makinen.

Makinen slowed when he clouted a rear wheel on a rock and the rear suspension was knocked out of line. The real mover of the day was Sainz on a charge up to fourth, assisted by Solberg’s spin.

Then Makinen rolled at high speed in spectacular style, the Finn’s Impreza tumbling seven times at the end of the 13km third stage. Makinen and co-driver Kaj Lindstrom were uninjured.

Split timing showed Makinen had been up three seconds and absolutely fl}dng.

It appeared that Gronholm had the rally in the bag, cruising through the final stage to claim another 1-2 for Peugeot but more drama was to come. The problems the 2000 champion had getting the 206 started that morning were to be his downfall. The crew had received verbal instructions on to how to start the car from members of the team outside Control.

The exclusion meant Burns moved up but more disappointment was to come for the French team; six hours after the British driver collected the spoils, stewards excluded the reigning Champ after the flywheel in the Peugeot was found to be underweight.

“We decided not to appeal,” said a furious Corrado Provera.

“Marcus is very angry - he is the moral winner. The rule of one kilometre around the car is to prevent ‘wild nature’ servicing where people hide in the woods.

We feel we respected the spirit of this rule.

“Now this; I just cannot believe it; Burns exclusion handed Sainz victory, his first since Cyprus two years ago.

“We started the rally with a problem,” smiled the Spaniard later. “We tried to catch up but it had not been the best rally for the team. But now we are victors, incredible, absolutely incredible.”

Solberg took a fine second ahead of McRae, giving Ford the lion’s share of the manufacturers points in more ways than one. Marko Martin picked up more points for Ford in fourth ahead of the Skodas of Gardermeister and Eriksson In Group N, Mitsubishi’s Ramon Ferreyros took the honours by half a minute from Toshi Arai in a Subaru, with Karamjit Singh third.

The rally moves back to Europe now for the tough Acropolis in Greece where Peugeot will look to recover its pride.

81

Rally briefs FETTER Solberg’s fine second in Argentina couid have been shatterebi 36 hours before the start during Subaru's pre-event test when the young Norwegian fiew off the road at high speed.

"We went off massively - fiat in fifth - but it was not my fault, it was a machining failure in the A-amn. We didn’t hit anything - it was a straight.

You can say we were lucky," said Solberg.

The front suspension collapsed and he shot 100 metres off the road You can be luckyl

Peugeot civil wer?

THINGS were not rosy in the Peugeot camp in the days leading up to the Argentine round,so imagine what they are like now!

Marcus Gronholnn lashed out at team-mate Richard Burns

prior to the start, calling the Englishman arrogant and more suited to Formula 1 than rallying.

While he was there, Gronholm also took swipes at former world n A stone-throwing incident in champs Colin McRae and Argentina'saw a sizeable rock hit the Tommi Makinen. middle of Ford driver Markko "Normally the rally drivers get Martin's windscreen, showering he .on well, but there is one guy and co-driver Michael Park with tjny who is arrogant and that's glass fragments.

Richard Bums," Gronholm said.

They were receiving attention to their "He would be far more at eyes to remove fragments at service. home in FI. For instance, he "It was quite high speed, it just went tells me I should be more bang," said the shocked Estonian. arrogant towards the media.

"It was exactly on my view for right "Everyone says Colin is the hand corners. It was extremely best in the world, but he keeps dangerous." \ making mistakes. Tommi has An even more worrying happening .lost it a little bit. He also makes was the armed robbery of several mistakes. Mistakes I don't rally identities and a journalist in a make. As for Burns, he might restaurant in the host town of Villa not be a nice guy, but he's good."

Carlos Paz two days before the start Gronholm was reported to of the rally. have been upset when Burns The incident was thought to be joined Peugeot, especially when linked with Argentina's current dire economic problems The robbery incident plus rock throwing and even problems with shipping cars could spell the end for the long running Rally Argentina with COOPER’S will sponsor South Mexico taking over in 2003.

Australia’s round of the ARC The problems in Argentina come Super Series for the second year in the wake of a highly praised running, and has produced a Mexican event a few weeks ago. The special brew featuring local Mexican Rally is bidding hard to join the hero Ed Ordynski on the can.

14-round series and reports are that The news was announced at the if Argentina hasn't sorted itself out launch in Adelaide recently, where by the October it could be replaced changes to the Wayville

by Mexico as early as next year.

Showground Special Stage and the ongoing involvement of Mitsubishi n Following our report in MN as vehicle supplier were also recently, Warwick Rooklyn has taken confirmed. delivery of a brand new Evolution VII The Cooper’s Pale Ale Rally of Lancer as his weapon for the 2003 Australian Rally Championship.

The car went immediately to the Central Coast workshops of Ron Cremen, who will oversee the preparation of the new Omega Smeg-backed machine.

While planning to continue to campaign his Group A Daihatsu Charade to net the 2002 Formula 2 Championship, Rooklyn may switch to the new car early if he bags the title earlier.

"If we can secure the F2 Championship by Tasmania and the new car is 100 percent ready to go, then we'll run it in Melbourne as an extended.test for next season," Rooklyn said.

- JON THOMSON

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Dancing to a different tune: While Peugeot ha e been notching up the wins in this year’s WRC series, the word is that things are less than cosy between team-niates Richard Burns and Marcus Gronholm.

Burns is earning twice as much as the Finn. Gronholm has since re-signed for the French team until 2006.

Burns dismissed Gronholm's words as mindgames.

"It's similar to what Colin tried last year. It's normal wherever the biggest threat comes from.

If this is how Marcus wants to do it, so be it," Burns said.

- JON THOMSON

Ed by the sixpack ARC date

62

South Australia, scheduled for July 12-14, will return to Wayville Showgrounds, with the forestry action to again he centred at Mt Crawford Forest.

'Tickets to the Wa3rville Super Special Stages and Service Park and the Mount Crawford Forest Stages and the Service Park at the National Motor Museum in Birdwood will cost $17.50 per day, with a weekend pass to the entire event costing $67.50.

- JON THOMSON

change

RALLY of Melbourne

organisers have confirmed a change of date for this year’s event.

The rally will now be run on September 13-15, one week later than originally scheduled.

There are also expected to be some alterations to the route, however it will be contained primarily within the confines of the Toolangi State Forest, with the popular DeBortolis stage pencilled in to feature twice on the final day.

Plans are also in the works for a ‘real’ Super Special Stage to be conducted at a location close to the city.

The proposal is still being evaluated, with the final decision hinging in part on the securing of additional funding.

- MARK GLENDEIMNING

moiorspori news

Fabulous Rnland! Your vroom to vodka guide

Steven Gerrard England’s next World Cup hero talks fast cars and rallying! \

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Da boy’s got skills: Ryan Newman had to do it the tough way, though it was the way to go in the end. (phok by subm-imges)

The Nightly Newman T

HE Winston all-star event is held annually in Charlotte for the' previous year's race winners and ex-winners of The Winston,though the rules always seem to change and this year was no exception, with Ryan Newman taking out his first win in the big money clash.

Qualifying had its usual twist, with 25 cars taking a four tyre pit stop and then embarking from pit road on three timed laps around the 1.5 mile oval. Matt Kenseth proved to be fastest, followed by Michael Waltrip, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton.

The Winston Open is a race open to all comers, with just the winner of the 30-lapper making it through to the main event. Jeremy Mayfield held off Ken Schrader, Newman, Hut Stricklin and Kyle Petty to move to the Winston field, while Newman won the 16-lap No Bull Sprint to grab the final spot for The Winston.

Segment one was over 40 laps with a mandatory four-tyre pit stop under green flag conditions and was won by Jimmie Johnson. Johnson led just the final lap when Jeff Burton pitted for tyres, craftily crossing the finish line on pit road.

Newman finished 20th, the final transfer slot ...

Following a 10-minute break for teams to work on cars, Johnson led all 30 laps in this race over Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jeff Burton retired with a blown clutch, while Elliott Sadler hit the wall after racing hard with Newman, Elliott doing a fine job of throwing his helmet at Newman's Taurus after the incident.

"That was my Dover car," said Sadler, "one of my favourites

64

A racefor the transfer spot: Pole-sitter Matt Kenseth, above, runs the lowline at Charlotte in a bid to work his way through the order, though it was Ryan Newman, below, who transferred to the winner s podium.

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Mark Martin blew an engine on lap 11 and the rear five cars pitted for fresh rubber. Jeff Gordon was forced to the rear on the restart; his windshield squeegee fell outside the pit box, which was deemed a penalty. The race for 10th place was furious, Tony Stewart getting the final transfer spot, while amazingly, Gordon was eliminated along with Michael Waltrip, Ricky Rudd, Joe Nemechek and Terry Labonte.

After inverting the finishing order of the previous segment, Stewart had the pole for the final 20-iapper and he led the

THE young guns, and in particular Jimmie Johnson, headed the majority of the Coca-Cola 600 - the longest race on the Winston Cup tour on Sunday, hut when the laps wore down,the veterans shone through in the shape of Mark Martin, who won his first race since Martinsville in April 2002 and first-ever GOO miler. - .

Martin also won the $2 million Winston No Bull bonus.

“I’m keeping just a little bit,” said a jubilant Martin post-race.

“The crew are getting the rest, I promised them that before this race. I can’t win in a slow car and this Roush team buckled down and put me in a race car that could win and gave that win with four tyres on that last pit stop.

“I may not win another one, so I’m gonna party all night tonight and I don’t even drink!”

Johnson led 263 laps, but bumped Hut Stricklin while leading to air the final caution and start ninth on the restart after stops. Martin led the final 37 laps off pit road, the race starting in late afternoon and ending some four and a half hours later under the lights.

“It’s very disappointing,” said Johnson,“but there’s a lot of times in this sport when the best car doesn’t win, it’s the smartest driver and that’s what happened tonight.”

Several front-runners suffered

first three laps before Newman took over up front.

Newman opened up a healthy advantage after a re start, but Earnhardt Jr was on a tear and he caught up to Newman with two laps remaining, getting close enough to nudge him exiting turn two on the final lap.

But Newman held on by 0.158s for a well-deserved win.

"It was good hard racing, real clean. He {Earnhardt Jr) could have taken advantage of the situation after he nudged me and won the race, my hat's off to him," he said.

- MARTIN D CLARK moiorsport news

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NASCAR

I tastes the Coke

Joe in for Jerry

JOE Nemechek, above, has been named the driver to replace Jerry Nadeau through the remainder of the year at Hendrick Motorsports in the #25 Chevrolet.

Prior to The Winston, Nemechek . had been named as the shoe on an interim basis after Nadeau's release. n Elliott Sadler has been fined $10,000 by NASCAR for throwing his helmet at Ryan Newman's Ford during The Winston following Sadler's wreck, which he blamed on Newman. n Jimmie Johnson won the pole for the Coke 600 at Charlotte with a new track record of 186.460 mph.

Ward Burton, Dale Jarrett, Jeff Green, Steve Grissom, Brett Bodine, Hermie Sadler, and Ron Hornaday took the seven available provisional slots. Derrike Cope, Randy Renfrew, Chad Little and Carl Long were sent packing, as their times failed to get them in the 43 car field.

The Fords are on a flier: Mark Martin put the Viagra car in Victory Lane at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Chariotte, fending off Roush Racing team-mate Matt Kenseth s DeWait car. for position coming off the final “We had a great car,” said Rudd. engine woes. Daytona 500 winner corner, while veterans Michael “But unfortunately the car Ward Burton had one let go on the Waltrip, Bill EUiott and Rusty started pushing real bad there at first lap, then strong runners Ryan Wallace completed the top 10. the end, which is just our luck.” /lewman, Jeff Burton and Kurt Robby Gordon completed all Busch dropped off the pace.

Final result; Martin (Ford),Kenseth 1100 miles of his marathon day in With 29 laps to run. Dale (Ford), Craven (Ford),Rudd (Ford), J the Indy 500 and Coke 600, , Earnhardt Jr also retired when his Gordon (Chevy),Stewart(Pontiac), finishing eighth in Indy and 16th crankshaft pulley broke off the Johnson (Chevy), Waltrip (Chevy), at Charlotte, with nothing more EUiott(Dodge),RWaUace (Ford). front of the engine. than cramps in his stomach and Ricky Rudd is the new NASCAR Points standings; MarUn 1775, Kenseth right legiron man, outdoing Terry Labonte 1688, Martin 1632,J Gordon 1584, Jeff Gordon moved to fourth in when started his 656 career Johnson 1578, R Wallace 1576, Stewart points when he passed Tony Winston Cup race and finished a 1544, Busch 1529, Rudd 1495, EUiott 1437.

Stewart after some fender bangingdeserving fourth.

I chairs warming up WITH Elliott Sadler wanting out at the Wood Brothers team,left, creating plenty of talk in the garage area at Charlotte about who’s going to replace him, word is it’s John Andi-etti, right, and it could happen soon.

Petty Entei-prises ai-e apparently unhappy with Andi-etti’s performance and are wanting Bobby Hamilton, who last drove for Petty in 1997, back in the seat. That’s if Hamilton can get released from his contract with Andy Petree Racing.

All this hinges on Sadler’s release, which apparently the team are in discussion with sponsor Motorcraft about. Sadler has offered to give up his share of the winnings if they can come to an agreement shortly.

- MARTIN B CLARK

n Kurt Busch has been fined $20,000 by NASCAR for intentionally spinning out Robby Gordon during the final segment of The Winston, his blatant comment post i%ce possibly causing the fine, "I bumped him," Busch said post-race. "We needed a yellow there at the end we had a shot at the win after that."

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n Wally Dallenbach Jr. has won a court battle over lost earnings with his former (Salaxy Motorsports car owner Darwin Oordt for $22.6 million However, it is unlikely he will collect any monies, due to Oordt's financial situation and the fact he has admitted he will not pay a penny. n Rusty Wallace suffered a violent wreck during The Winston, broke three toes in his left foot and drove with the injury in the Coke 600.

"They're just cracked," he said. "It was the hardest head-on wreck I've ever had in my life. I don't know that I would have survived without the Hutchens head and neck device." n Ron Hornaday was driving for Shavvna Robinson in both The Winston and Coke 600 at Charlotte to apparently evaluate the team's performance with a more experienced driver behind the wheel, - MARTIN D CLARK

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AFTER many years as title sponsor of Willowbank's New Year Series, Castrol has come on board as title sponsor of the 35th annual Winternationals.

And the competitors are coming out in force, with more than 450 entries slated for tfie June 7-9 meeting.

Entries in the Top Fuel categoiy include Andrew Cowin, who has been granted a special release from his NHRA New York Yankees team’to return for a one-off appearance in the Cowin family dragster.

Cowin recorded a 4.58s/323 mph in that car last year, and plans to better Australia's quickest time, a 4.81 sec pass recorded by his father at the 1997 Winternationals.

Jim Read's record-breaking 301.4mph pass last year, the country's first-ever 300 mph pass, will also be under threat from the Cowin team if the conditions allow.

Other entries in Top Fuel include a return to racing by

Terry Sainty and Darren DiFillippo. Sainty returns with a new version of their own Australian designed and built engines. Di Fillippo, meanwhile, will be behind the wheel of 'Garry McGrath's fueller.

Regulars Jim Read in the Gregory's Car Manuals dragster, Steve Read in the Santo's Cranes dragster, Robin Kirby in the Pennzoil machine, and the local team of Mick Atholwood and Roy Smith will make up the strongest field seen in Top Fuel in the last four years.

The Lucas Oils Products dragster of Gary Phillips will be tough to beat in Top Alcohol once again, after Phillips recorded his first 5.6 sec pass at a recent Pro Am at Willowbank, although tough opposition will come from Paul Shackleton, who recorded a string of 5.6 sec passes at this year's Nationals.

A world record may be on the cards in Top Doorslammer. Peter Kapiris is aiming to record the first 5.0s pass for an alcohol-

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MRQU&ON takes a peek

King Kenny

THE two best Top Fuel cars in the NHRA squared off at the 33rd Mateo Tools SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway in Englishtown a fortnight ago for the third 'Beer War' of the season.

Kenny Bernstein's Budweiserbacked dragster, pictured, came out on top of the Miller Lite machine of Larry Dixon, 4,60/321 to 4.81/319, a run which saw Dixon ride the wheelie bars twice during the on-and-off the throttle pass.

Australians Andrew Cowin and David Grubnic both qualified for the show, but were eliminated in the opening round of racing.

Cowin made his best qualifying effort in quite some time, recording a 4.63/327 to end up 66

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In round one, however. Cowin struck the tyres in the Darrell Gwynn-owned dragster and fell to John Smith, Grubnic used a 4.72/311 pass for 10th and was defeated by Doug Kalitta in a smokey 5.03/280 to 5.38/285 match.

Gary Densham scored his fourth career win and second of the season when he defeated Bruce Server in the final Funny Car round, 5.04/316 to a tyre smoking 7.31/115.

The victory coincided with a rare first round loss by his boss John Force.

In a re-match of the 2000 pro Stock final round, Greg Anderson reversed the outcome to stop Jeg Coughlin, 6.80/201

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to 6.81/202.

Antron Brown defeated Craig Treble for the Pro Stock Motorcycle title, 7.11/192 to 7.15/183. Earlier Brown had scored 7.11/193 and 7.12/192 wins over Joe DeSantis, and Shawn Gann. In the semi final

round. Brown defeated Angelle Savoie on a holeshot, 7.13/183 to 7.11/187.

Savoie had established a new NFIRA elapsed time record during qualifying at 7.049 seconds.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKl moiorsport news

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fuelled Doorslammer in the world.

Kapiris has already gone 6.07 in his '53 Studebaker, and can go for broke at the event, having already wrapped up the national championship. Victor Bray will be in the same frame of mind, having missed winning the title for the first time since the bracket was introduced.

Bray will be debuting his brand new Murray Anderson-built Castrol '57 Chev, and will also be chasing that elusive 5.0s pass.

Others to watch will include Ben Bray, who piloted his father's old '57 Chev to its quickest pass ever at Wiilowbank Raceway, at the recent Pro Am. Ben recorded a 6.17/225 on his last pass of the night. The Lifestyle Corvette of Kym Petterwood and the Lucas Oils Studebaker of Gary Phillips, have both gone into the 6.20s.

Brett Stevens's Jack Daniels Studebaker and the Winters 9.

Smash Repairs '55 Chev of Les § Winter are always a threat as I 5 well in this ultra-tough bracket.

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Peter Ridgeway may have already wrapped up the national championship and have the quickest timecard to his credit with a 7.51, but will have heaps of pressure to contend with in Pro Stock. While John Barbagallo and Dennis Whiting have also gone in the 7.50s, Mike Tinney is coming to grips with his HSV Commodore and recorded his first 7.60 a few weeks ago.

Jay Watson finally sorted his combination in his Chev Beretta, and recorded back-to-back 7.53 timecards at a recent Street Meet, also going 183mph.

On recent form. Jay Upton would have to be the hot favourite in the Top Bike bracket, as long as he can keep the drive belts on the bike. His last appearance at Wiilowbank saw Upton twice robbed of any chance of breaking the national records by a broken drive belt on the startline.

The Supercharged Outlaws bracket which will be run and completed on the Saturday night has received a record ^ entries.

Millican scores a hat-trick CLAY Millican continued his domination of IHRA Top Fuel by besting Bruce Litton in the final round of the Amalie Oil Nationals at Cordova Dragway Park two weeks ago.

Millican took his third win in as many events, posting a final round 4.67/305 to defeat Litton, who was up in smoke as soon as he hit the throttle.

A first round 4.62/319 eliminated Don Reed and a 4.63/324 knocked out 17-year old rookie Josh Starcher.

Defending IHRA Pro Mod Champion Mike Janis claimed his first victory of the year, defeating A1 Billes in an all-blown final round, 6.20/227 to 6.42/214.

In the semi-final round match against Mitch Stott, the pair put on the best race of the day with both cars leaving dead-even at the 29 May 2002

green and Janis just edging Stott at the final.

Johnny Mancuso defeated points leader Ray Price in the final round of Screaming Eagle Nitro Harley.

Mancuso used a 6.39/221 in the final to stop Price, who was way late and clicked it early. On his way to his first final round of the year, Mancuso posted 6.40/217 and 6.43/193 victories over Mark Conner and Steve Stordeur.

Doug VancO,right, made histoiy during Saturday nights qualifying session, riding the Vance & Hines Harley to the sport’s first 6.2s run when he lit up the scoreboards with a 6.278 second blast. Vancil earned the front wheel to 1100 feet, setting it down in a puff of smoke on the histoiy-making pass.

He backed it up for a new world record in the opening round when he posted a 6.28/220 on a single.

Pt«j|o IV Dnvid 09|au9W^

Jason Collins bested the quickest field in the history of the IHRA to win his first-ever IHRA Pro Stock event title, as he stopped Doug Kirk in the final round on a holeshot, 6.59/213 to 6.57/211. The final round speed also backed up his 213.54 mph blast in the semis for a new world mph record.

Jimmy Rector also made it three

for three in the 2002 season as he piloted his Holbrook Performance Chevrolet Camaro to a 5.82/241 to 5.90/237 win over Dale Brand in Alcohol Funny Car. Rector top-qualified at 5.82/241 and defeated Kevin Newburgh, Mike Cornelia, and Mark Thomas along the way.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI 67

Russell

REIGNING NHRA Rookie of the Year DarreU Russell defeated curent POWERade point leader Larry Dixon in the final Top Fuel round of the O'Reilly Summer Nationals at Topeka last weekend.

Facing Dixon in the finale, and having a career 0-7 record against the best Top Fuel team of 2002 to date, RusseU and the Bilstein Engine Flush Systems team proved that they were up to the challenge.

Russell left on Dixon and never looked back, taking a 4.63/3M to 4.67/316 victory.

The victory was Russell's third in nine career final round appearances.

“When you line up with that Miller Lite car, it seems like they’re either right"next to you or out in front of you,” said Russell.'

“This time 1 never saw or heard them, I thought they had broke or smoked the tyres.”

Russell's march to victory began with a 4.68/309 to 4.89/277 round one win over Andrew Cowin.

Fellow Aussie David Grubnic was also a first-round casualty, falling to Rhonda Hartman-Smith.

Russell then took a 4.70/305 to 4.83/290 win over Melanie Troxel.

In the semis, RusseU, used a much- needed .433 to .490 holeshot to stop Cory McClenathan in a tight 4.76/301 to 4.71/313 race. iiflJixon in his remarkable eighth

Gary Densham.

Troy Coughlin scored his second career win, besting first-time finalist, Mark Whisnant, 6.92/198 to 6.99/197.

Oh what a feeling: Gary Sceizi chats to Bruce Sarver, who replaced him in the Celica Funny Car, above. Darryl Russell, below, who added his (Photo by David Ostaszewski) name to the 2002 Top Fuel winner’s list, final round in nine events, was on his usual torrid pace, posting 4.65/318, 4.63/319, and 4.65/318 victories over Scott Weis, a redlighting Doug Kalitta, and Tony Schumacher.

He also extended his point lead over Kenny Bernstein when Bernstein shook during a round two burnout, which deployed the chutes, forcing him to be shut off.

Tony Pedregon notched his second win of 2002, stopping Tim Wilkerson in the final round, 4.91/320 to 4.99/302.

Pedregon drove his Castrol

Syntec Ford Mustang past Dale Creasy in round one, posting a 5.00/302, then took a holeshot, 5.05/270 to 4.99/306 win over his brother Frank.

In the semis, Pedregon again used a holeshot to take out his boss, 4.92/311 to 4.87/316.

The semi-final round pass by Force was low e.t. of eliminations.

Qualifying fourth a 4.89/308, the Levi, Ray, and Shoup Pontiac of Wilkerson recorded winning laps of 4.90/304, 4.94/309, and 4.96/305 in victories over fellow Illinoian, John Lawson, Dean Skuza, and

Whisnantjumped out to an early lead, but by half-track, Coughlin had made up the difference and went on become the ninth different winner this season.

The deg’s Mail Order Chevrolet Cavalier took a holeshot, 6.92/198 to 6.89/200 round one win over Greg Anderson. He also posted 6.95/198 and 6.96/198 wins over JR Carr and brother Jeg to advance into his 10th career final round.

Whisnant, coming over from the truck ranks this season, had defeated Gene Wilson in the opening round.

He then took holeshot victories over Richie Stevens and low qualifier (6.85), Jim Yates to make the all-Chevy final.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI Points: Top Fuel - L. Dixon 914, K. Bernstein 727, C McClenathan 616, T. Schumacher 595, D. Kalitta 489, R,’Russell 455, D. Grubnic 413, R. Hartman-Smith 396 D. Herbert 372, J. Smith 342. Funny Car G. Densham 658, J. Force 656, T. Pedregon 581, W. Bazemore 553, D. Worsham 508 T Johnson Jr 423, T. WRkerson 416, J. Gray 407, S. Cannon 402, R. Capps 398, Pm Stock - J. Yates 628, W. Johnson 588 J Coughlin Jr 497, R. Krisher 476, D Alderman 464. Pro Stock Bike _ a Savnio 390, C. treble 379,A. Brown 281 S Gann 263, M. Hines 247. ' ™

I

SPEEDWAY

Skip to skip WSS? TT

by AARON NOONAN

THERE’S increasing speculation that former World Series Sprintcar champ Skip Jackson won’t be returning this summer have another crack at the WSS title.

Jackson, who is currently racing in Knoxville for a new team, JTR Racing,is thought to he perhaps thinking about staying in the United States to focus on his program there, rather than return for the Australian summer.

Ifindeed Jackson doesn’t return to the Pennzoil/Bunbury Toyota team run by Shane Krikke,just who could fill the seat?

There was considerable talk late this season that Brooke Tatnell would take over the drive for the 2002/2003 series, particularly after Tatnell drove the car in the South Australian Title event at Speedway Citj^ Meanwhile, the driver list for World Series Sprintcars this season is being drawn up, and from all reports, it sounds like a

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A different pilot in the Pennzoil machine? Well, we presume it won’t

be Sam Hornish Jr...

(Photo by Geoff Grade)

TOMASZ Gollob, above, enjoyed one of the greatest nights of

his life with a brilliant victory in the Pentel FIM Speedway Grand Prix of Poland in Bydgoszcz on Saturday night.

Gollob pulled off a sensational win against his number one rival Tony Rickardsson in the final with Mark Loram third.

"This is a very special night for me," admitted an emotional Gollob afterwards. "Tony is a very good and a very fast rider and to beat him makes me feel very good."

Jason Crump, hotly tipped to relieve Rickardsson of his crown this year, came fourth for the second GP running but he is still very much in contention with the third round at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff less than a fortnight away.

Countrymen Ryan Sullivan and Leigh Adams were fifth and sixth respectively.

Max Dumesny Moiorsport Australian Distributors for

n While Queensland's dates are in the air, there are some tracks that hosted rounds in 2001/2002 that won't be back next season. Lismore, Horsham and Nyora are all out, while there is a January 3 date in Victoria that is without a venue.

Warmambool's Premier Speedway will host two rounds this season, one on New Year's Day (Wednesday January 1) and the other on Saturday, January 4.

That will make January a busy month for the track, with the Classic to be run on January 25-26 and the Australian Championship on January 30-31, February 1.

The full WSS calendar will be released shortly. n Dorian's timing system is due to undergo a test run at Parramatta this Friday (May 31).

Dorian Industries, based in Melbourne, has developed the DATA-1 timing system used in Australia as well as in CART and the IRL, and is looking to introduce it to speedway racing to improve accuracy of timing.

Interest has been shown by a number of tracks and organisations in the system, with the new system meaning that lining cars up in their correct positions for re-starts will be significantly easier with the transponder system.

Just where the units are positioned on Sprintcars remains to be seen, either positioned close to the radiator or attached to the firewall.

-AARON NOONAN

2002 WORLD OF OUTLAWS SPRINTCAR SERIES Lowe’s Motor Speedway May 2S

1. Greg Hodnett 2. Jac Haudenschild 3. Donny Schatz 4. Steve Kinser 5. Shane Stewart ^^ RACING TIRE For more information on Hooshr Drag and Speedway Tyres calb 6. Craig Dollansky NSW;02 9679 1990 » Fax 02 9679 1187 7. Joey Saldana 8. Tyler Walker VIC;03 9331 6477 « Fax 03 9331 7444 9. Danny Lasoski SA- 08 8332 0800 » Fax 08 8364 0296 10. Danny Wood 29 May 2002

PARRAMATTA City Raceway has slated the January 10-11 weekend of next year to run its S50,000-towin Sprintcar show,though that could mean problems.

Traditionally, the event has been run a weekend earlier, with the date it will run this year being generally used for the Queensland leg of the World Series Sprintcar trail.

This could mean that WSS may have to look at alternative dates for Queensland this upcoming season, though we hear negotiations are continuing and dates being discussed.

SUNBMr

difficult job!

Naturally, defending Champion /Max Dumesny and American Donny Schatz are at the top of the list to return for this summer’s series.

Add in Brad Purr, Stephen Bell, Brooke Tatnell, Daryn Pittman (in a Titan Garages machine), Trevor Green, Cameron Gessner, Darren Jensen, Daryn Maggs,Andrew Scheuerle and Tony Bartlett, and you have pretty much the same top names that ran at the front of the field in last season’s WSS. Sources suggest that Victorian SRA Champ Mike Van Bremen has committed to running WSS this season, while other names mentioned for full assaults include Darrell Hodges, David Murcott, Todd Wanless, Jeremy Warren, Luke Dillon and Karl Enderl.

The full list of contracted drivers as well as the calendar for the 2002/2003 season are expected to be released in the upcoming few weeks.

Date ciash to cause probiems?

11. Mark Kinser 12. Daryn Pittman 13. Tim Shaffer 14. Johnny Herrera 15. Brad Furr 16. Stevie Smith 17. Wayne Johnson 18. P.J. Chesson 19. Craig Keel 20. Paul McMahan

Stairaclings to May 2S

1.Stove Kinser 2.Danny Lasoski . .

3.Mark Kinsor 4.Craig Dollansky . . .

5.Joey Saldana . . . .

6.1'ini Shoffor 7.Donny Schatz . . , 8.Stevie Smith . . . .

9.Brad Furr 10.Randy Hannagan

.3372 .3355 .3287 .3225 .3193 .3105 .3105 .3099 .3077 .2898

89

Targa Tasmania

Targa treasures

by BRIAN REED

with the 77-year-old Vauxhall 30/98 of Michael Hopkins and Mark Bums performing wonders in third place.

The status quo was maintained after Day 2 of competition.

IN the history of Tai’ga Tasmania, Although conditions were ideal the honour of being selected flag in Hobart for the start of Day 3, car has become somewhat like that rain made roads treacherous for bestowed on the pace car at the Tasman Trundle, and the Indianapphs. (Well, maybe not competitors welcomed the quite). opportunity of a rest day to This year’s privilege went to the participate in the Show and Shine . on the Parliament Lawns.

1936 Alvis SA 3.5 to be driven by NSW competitors Ross Pratley and The pressure started to tell on Rob Gunnell. The British classis ■ the old Vauxhall during Day 4 left the factory as a rolling chassis from Hobart to Burnie, and it on December 19,1935, destined for eventually dropped to fifth. Third Australia - the first 26HP Alvis to place was taken over by the second be imported to this country.

SSlOO Jaguar driven by Dennis RJ Hancrek of Melbourne was Stone and Paul Willoughby. the importer and had a Martin & Meanwhile, Geoff Go'wing’s SSlOO lost a further 20s to the Alfa.

King four-door light saloon body X fitten in 1936.

In a dramatic final day on the It wasn’t a good omen seeing the run to the finish line at Wrest Alvis being pushed off the ‘Spirit of Point, Gowing crashed his val uable Tasmania’ on arrival at Devonport, SSlOO Jag. His navigator, Tess and an unfixable gearbox problem McGrath, was airlifted to hospital meant that a replacement had to in a serious but stable condition, be found. John Fellows’s 1930 V8 while Gowing was treated at the Oakland 8-101 was a worthy scene by the event’s medical team. substitute.

R esults: 1. J. Lawson/A. Lawson 1938 The 1939 Jaguar SSlOO of SA’s Alfa Romeo Mille MigUa Spyder, 2. D. Stone/P. Willoughby 1937 Jaguar SSlOO, Geoff Gowing and Tess McGrath 3. J. Felder/C De Somerville 1930 set the pace in the Prologue, ahead Oakland 8-101. of John and Andrew Lawson in their 1938 Alfa Romeo Mille Miglia Spyder with John Felder and Craig After the giant-killing performance de Sommerville third in the 1930 against an XK-120 Jaguar in the Oakland. last Targa Tasmania, the 1958 Day 1, and the SSlOO held a 14 Austin Healey Sprite of second lead over the Alfa Romeo, n

Historic Competition

Touring Classic

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Giant-killer: After taking down a XK-120 Jag last year, the 1958 Sprite of Philip and Justin Nichols came back to beat an E-Type for an encore.

Tasmanians Philip and Justin Nichols again set the pace in the George Town Prologue.

Trailing were fellow Tasmanians Ian Sylvester and Marlene Madden (Honda S600), with Victorians Simon Froude and James England next in their 1961 E-Type Jaguar.

After Day 1 the little Bugeye Sprint had maintained its lead, but now had the superbly prepared 1958 Porsche 356A Carrera of Queensland duo Dan Bowden and Duncan MacKeller looming as its main threat.

The tiny S600 Honda held a 30s lead over the E-Type, with Mark Peterson/Darren Meyer (1964

Holden EH) ^nd Martin Utber/Nick Langford (1960 Vauxhall Custom) next.

Day 2 saw NichoFs Sprite maintain a precarious 2.0s advantage over the Porsche, with the Honda clinging grimly to third.

As the event progressed though, there was a certain inevitability about the Bowden challenge as it finally overhauled the gallant Sprite to go to a 52s lead by Burnie.

The Froude/England E-Type had also displaced the Honda S600 from third spot, the tiny Honda having dropped to seventh with mechanical problems.

Bowden seemed a certain winner, but a major off towards the end of the event saw Philip and Justion Nichols regain their lead and hold it to the end.

Residts: 1. P. Nichols/J. Nichols 1958 Austin Healey Sprite, 2. S. Froude/J. England 1961 Jaguar E-lVpe, 3. D. Bowden/D. MacKellar 1956 Porsche 365 A Carrera.

Classic Competition

Heading the fabulous collection of Classic cars was the $2.2M 1959 Porsche 718 RS60 Spyder from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, driven by its curator Klaus Bischof and navigated by German motoring writer Michael Peterson.

Just like yours but in a different colour, right? The $2,2 million 1959 Porsche 718 RS60 Spyder is a museum piece - literally. tnoiorsport news

HISTORIC5

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Hard road ahead: The Jaguar SS100 of Geoff Gowing and Tess McGrath crashed heavily on the final day.

The big field also included other gems such as a 1964 Iso Rivolta GT and a giant cross-section of cars from 1947 to 1961. Four big Healeys painted in the works colours of the great rally days of the sixties reminded us that 2002 is the 50th anniversary of the Healey.

The traditional Holden-Ford dogfight saw Peter O’Keefe and Andrew Kuc (1^77 Torana SLR 5000) just ease out the 1978 Falcon XC Cobra of Ian Robetrs/Colin Bray by just 0.58s in the Prologue.

O’Keefe dropped to fourth on

Red cars go fast: Simon Froude and James England’s 1961 E-Type was quick all week, but still got pipped by the Austin Healey Sprite.

Day 1 with electrical problems.

Melbourne’s Rex Broadbent and Michael Goadheer grabbed the opportimity in their 1974 Porsche 911 RSR and jumped into the lead from the Queensland team of Graham Copeland and John Siddins (Datsun 1800).

O’Keefe’s Torana SLR5000 was back on song, and another Queeslander, Mike Batton, was pressing hard on his Volvo PV544 Sport in third spot.

Broadbent’s driving was steady and consistent and he relished the

twisty conditions during the Tasman 'Trundle (Day 2). By the end of the day, he had extended his lead to just over 2 minutes over the Datsun 1800, and the Volvo had moved into third.

Day 3, the Southern Loop, saw the Porsche extend its lead to 3m22s over the Datsun 1800, Less fortunate was a 1968 Volvo 1223 , which left the road and caught fire.

The driver and navigator were able to climb out, and were treated for chest and back injuries.

The opposition worked hard, but

in the end Broadbent’s lead was too gi-eat he finished the race 4.56s ahead of the SLR5000.

A good battle for third saw Copeland and Giddins ease out Batte’s Volvo by 13s. Special mention should be made of the top ten result from Henry and Rosl3m Draper in their 1961 Morris Mini Minor - a big drive in a small car.

Results: 1. R. Broadbent/M. Goedheer 1974 Porsche 911 RSR, 2. M. Batten/T. Best 1961 Volvo PV544 Sport, 3. P. O’Keefe/A. Kuc 1977 Holden Torana SLR5000.

Little bits of history repeating Where to Grand Prix cars go when their time in the spotlight is up? For some of them, the answer is the FIA Thouroughbred Grand Prix Championship. Here are some highlights froma recent round at Donington.

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Flashbacks: The race-winning Williams FW 08 of Fredy Kumschink holds off a FW 07 and a Brabham BT49, above. Joining them were (Photos by Sutton-im ages) cars such as John Crowson’s Ensign N177, below.

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Cathcart kicks off

2002 Ford KartStars I Series opened over the weekend in Canberra with Round 1 presented by Super Cheap Auto Racing.

With drivers fighting for two Ford-supported drives in the 2003 Australian Formula Ford Championship, as well as test sessions in the Supercheap Auto Falcon V8 Supercar, the competition is certainly fierce.

Canberra turned on some sensational weather, with clear skies and sunshine bathing the Fairbairn Park circuit all day.

Victorian Clint Cathcart smashed the opposition with an emphatic victory over New Zealander Chris Vander Drift and-' Queenslander Scott Auld in Sunday’s final.

After being narrowly beaten by Vander Drift in the first heat after miscalculating the number of laps left, Cathcart took victory in both his other heats, as well as the Pre Final and Final.

The twisty and undulating Canberra circuit made for close racing all weekend, with Cathcart the only driver to ever really break away from the pack.

The Pre Final saw Vander Drift hold onto Cathcart’s rear bumper for several laps before gradually falling back into the clutches of the ensuing pack. The Kiwi’s race fell apart mid race when fighting for second place with Auld and Troy Woolston.

Woolston, who had impressed throughout the heats, dived inside both Auld and Vander Drift at the top comer,forcing the latter wide and losing half a dozen positions.

Auld found his way back into second and claimed a front row start for the final ahead of Woolston.

The Pre Final also saw the demise of Taz Douglas, who failed to greet the green flag after engine

FORD KARTSTARS - ROUND 1, CANBERRA

Just like a V8 Supercar podium!

Kiwi Chris Vander Drift, winner Ciint Cathcart and Scott Auld take to the Canberra podium.

Andrew Thompson, left, won the Junior Clubman support event.

(Photos by Simon Adams)

problems. Douglas had been a star performer, moving forward all weekend. Due to the DNF in the Pre Final, he was forced to start dead last in the Final, and subsequently stormed from 28th to 10th place, claiming bonus points for both the fastest lap and biggest mover.

Another previous KartStars entrant, Jason Varley, was also struggling early after qualifying a lowly 16th. A Sunday morning discovery that they were running

the wrong carburettor jetting brought immediate results for the Sydneysider, moving up to take fourth at the end of the day.

The Supercheap Auto Final saw Cathcart bolt from pole position and quickly establish a small break, allowing him to put in some quick laps while the rest of the pack fought each other.

Vander Drift, Adam Graham, Auld, Woolston, Jace Lindstrom, Kane Wiltshire and Varley all

formed a tight pack and the racelong battle was enthralling, with the fight getting tighter and tighter as each lap passed.

Cathcart held a comfortable three second lead throughout the latter part of the race and to the chequered flag.

By race end, Vander Drift found a way back past Auld, who had held second during the mid section of the race, ahead of Varley, Lindstrom and Wiltshire. Graham faded to seventh at the finish line, followed by an impressive run from John Marting, Josh ArandPand the fast-finishing Douglas.

The battle will continue at Ford Credit Round 2, to be held in Geelong on June 16-16.

FORD KART STARS SCOREBOARD 200S Round One -Canberra 25-26 May 2002 1. Clint Cathcart 2.Chris Vander Drift 3. Scott Auld 4. Jason Varley 5. Jace Lindstrom 6. Kane Wiltshire 7. Adam Graham

n

8. John Martin 9. Josh Arandt

15. Kel Treseder 16. Kane Rider 17. Steven Jones

10. Taz Douglas 11. Glen Saville 12. Nick Parker

18 Adrian Estasy 19. Ben Walter

22. Cameron Farr 23. Peter Jenkinson 24. Stewart Spry 25. Robbie Thorburn 26. Ben Guest

13. Ben Savage 14. Tony Chambers

20. Troy Woolston 21 Andrew Torti

27. Joel Spychala 28. John Grother

motorspori news

I

NATIONAL

Slamdown at Sandown

Have a cold one the second round of the Ford Racing Road King Karting Series was heid in near freezing conditions at Morwell on May 18-19, but this didn’t deter the spirit of the drivers competing in the 12 ciasses.

A number of the Loy Yang Grand Prix events were held on a greasy track after overnight showers, and thankfully heavy rain didn’t fall until the final event of the day -just prior to the track workers dismantling the circuit.

Leah Unsworth showed the boys the way in the Junior Clubman feature class, running strongly all weekend. David Sera (Arrow) initially led the 15 lap final, but a steady starting Unsworth (Tony Kart) caught and passed in the middle of the race, eventually taking a commanding win. Andrew Budge (Arrow) grabbed third.

29 May 2002

(Formula Australia Light) all keeping their perfect score intact and winning by large margins.

Jason Hryniuk (CRG), left, and I Adam Klunyk (Arrow) continued their 2002 war in Clubman Light, this time the National Champion winning every single race and forcing round one winner Klunyk to settle for second.

After Michael Pereira won ali the heats and pre-final, it was Brett Davidson who got up to win Rotax Heavy despite Unfortunately, the senior feature suffering a DNF in the heats. class. Formula 100, was withdrawn Kane Rose (Arrow) won because of insufficient entries, Formula Australia Heavy with wins also going to Andrew leaving Matt Wall on top of the table.

McFarland (Rookies), Brad Several drivers backed up their Cocks (Senior National), Dane opening round wins at Bobart (Clubman Heavy) and Shepparton with further success at Morwell, Paul Grieve Rod Camming (Over 40s).

The next round is at Mildura on (Leopard), David Sera (Junior August 17-18.

National Light), Mark Hester - MARK WICKS (Rotax Light) and Taz Douglas ■S-

THE Victorian Motor Racing Championship moved to Sandown Park on the May 18/19 weekend, with more big fields and good racing throughout.

The long open straights of the 3.1-kilometre layout gave the more powerful cars a chance to stretch their legs, with the hard stops at the end of the straights henefitting the smaller and more nimble machines.

Category winners in the pointscore races included Andy Nethercote(Fonnula Vee), Mort Fitzgerald (MGs), Chris Muscat(Sports Sedans), Adam Hickey(Fonnula Ford), Rohan Ambrose(Improved Production), Brendan Morter (Porsche 944s), Perry Spiridis (Marque Sports), Andrew Nowland(HQ Holdens), and Peter Beninca(Under TVoLitre Sports Sedans).

As usual, you can get up-todate with aU of the action from the VMRC in the inserts on Motorsport News.

13

HQs and Imp Prod sup And the heat doesn't stop the frantic action in either category either!

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Event

Venue

Australian Superbikes Championship

Winton

MGCC Hill Climb State Championship

Mt Cotton

V8 Supercars

Canberra

Drag Racing Wintemationals

Alice Springs I

QLD State Kart Championships

Rockhampton

Victorian State Racing Championship

Phiiip Island

Supercross Masters

(Photos by James Smith)

Stars to sett

Willowbank

Finke Desert Race

QLD Hill Climb State Championship

Only in Darwin!

The HQ Holdens and Improved Production cars supported the V8 Supercars at Hidden Valley, and the action never stopped.

Adam Allen’s Escort, above left, was in the Imp Prod field, while Queenslander Craig Yates, above. and David Ross, right, were among the HQ flyers.

Grafton Perth

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saie9@0k<e'l|irakesieO'lii:»ak motofsport news

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state of the Park IT was a windy weekend for competitors in round three of the NSW State Championships at Oran Park on May 18/19.

Matthew Howard comfortably won the first Formula Ford race from Ian Dyk and Damien Meyer.

Race 2 didn't go to plan for Howard, who failed to finish after having the lead early. The race was closely won by Laurence Burford, with Phil Moyes second.

Monoposto was a two horse race, with Mark McHenry taking two wins and a second and David Cutts winning race 3 and finishing second in the other races.

The Production Sports category started well for Bill Pye (Elise) with a win in race 1 but could only manage third in race two and didn’t start race three.

Peter Landan’s (Elise) weekend was better with a second.

followed by two race wins.

Race 1 of Formula Alfa was won by Greg Sticker, followed

by Anthony Amante and Enzo Piazza. Amante won a drama packed race two with oil having been dropped around the last corner.

Improved Production Under 2L racing had two hard fought victories by Paul Zyfert (Sunny) from Scott Fleming (808), while the Improved Production Over 2L races produced a familiar pattern of results with Peter Rushton (RX7) and Nick Dunkley(RX7)sharing the wins.

Chris Jackson took out two comfortable race victories in Sports Sedans, while the Combined Touring car races produced three different winners.

- MICHAEL SHAW

e scores in Darwin '

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THE 'Legends of Motorsport' will be heading to Hidden Valley Raceway from August 23-25, with many of the stars of yesteryear to fight it out in the good 'ol HQ Holden.

' Being put together by Phil 'Splitpin — Brock, these days a Darwin resident —^ and local HQ racer, left, many of the stars of Aussie racing of the 1970s ^ will fight it out in HQ Holdens.

Among the list of 'Legends' are Peter Brock, Ailan Moffat, Jim , n Richards, Allan Grice, Kevin Bartlett, Bob Morris, Doug Chivas, John "— Harvey, Garry Rogers, John Goss, Murray Carter and Ron Harrop.

"We've been yakking about this sort of thing for ages trying to get Peter up here for a meeting," says Phil, "The planning's been going since September last year and now it's

1 May 2002

growing all out of proportion.

Running HQs, there's no other class in Australia that we could do this where the guy who owns the car gladly will step aside and let the guys have a drive!"

The meeting will include a Thursday night charity go-kart night, followed by practice and qualifying for HQs and the other categories on Friday, with the Legends taking to the track on Saturday for heats and a . final, before a two-hour, two driver race on Sunday.

Added drawcards are speedway legends Garry Rush and George Tatnell, who will race Sprintcars at Northline Speedway over the weekend.

For more details of the weekend, contact Phil Brock on 08 8947 2762 or 0402 144 866.

- AARON NOONAN

Karting Briefs THE AKA has issued a rule addendum relating to the Rotax MAX class after a number of engines were found to have slipped through an official stamping process.

As of the beginning of June, all MAXs used in AKA competition must have two 'Formula Rotax Australia' stamps on the crankcase and one on the reed block face of the cylinder.

Rotax owners who do not have the required number of stamps should contact DPE on 03 9545 3944 to make arrangements for the extra stamps. n A diesel-powered kart has hit the track in northern Queensland.

The MakoTrac facility have run a developmental German Hatz diesel engine on a Swiss Hutless chassis at their circuit in Mareeba.

The 206cc, 6.2hp engine is rev limited to 4200rpm and is good for 65km/h on the company's rental circuit. n Switzerland's leading female karter, Cyndie Allemann, leads the European Formula A Championship after the opening round at Ampfing, Germany, on May 12. Allemann shared the finals wins with fellow CRG/Maxter driver Christopher Wassemann.

Aussies Josh Hunt (Energy/Stratos) and Ben Horstman (Biesse/Fox) failed to make the final, despite Horstman qualifying in the middle of the 99 kart entry.

The Birel/TMs of Sebastian Chetail and Gianpaolo Viani won the ICC events, while the new Supet ICC class went to former 125 champions Milton Ryttarbris (First/Pavesi) and Alessandro Piccini (Parolin/TM). n Organisers of the Road King Karting series. Frontline Sports Management, have announced they have inked an agreement with the Victorian Karting Association that could see the series run through to 2007. The program, which has backing from Ford Racing, is based on an initial two year period with further options. n Troy Hunt will be operating his Top Gun Racing Schools at the Ipswich Kartway from the 17th to the 21st of June.

Troy's schools provide the best tuition for karters of any age and his experience includes running schools throughout Europe and throughout Australia, along with knowledge gained from many years racing at the top level around the world.

So, if you want to receive one-onone coaching from the leader of the 2002 APS Formula A Championship, give him a call on 0438 664 626 or drop him a line, topgunfsa@hotmail.com - MARK WICKS 75

Industry News

r'WssasfwpFf

Synthetic Oils

THE saying “You get what you pay for” applies to most things in life and none more so than in motor racing. The failure of cheap and inferior components can he the difference between success and failure.

Competitors are willing to invest thousands of dollars to build faster and stronger engines, gearboxes and diffs only to risk failure by using inferior lubrication.

The benefits of synthetic oils has been recognised for many years now. Neo-One has been at the fore front of S3mthetic oil production and research for over 30 years.

They have used their experience and applied the results of the research to produce an oil of the highest standard.

The manufacturers and distributors claim Neo One lubricants will, in addition

New Race Campaign

LEADING international automotive parts suppliers is launching a new advertising campaign featuring local drivers Dave Koop and Mark Eng. Delphi are currently major sponsors of Dave Koops 1955 Chev Bel Air Top Doorslammer and Mark King’s Mitsubishi Lancer EVO GT Production Car. Delphi has been

involved in motorsport for over 20 years through Formula 1, IRL, CART and Formula 3000, supplying products such as engine control modules, radio telementry modules and fuel injectors.

With over 90 years of global OE experience, Delphi is bringing this experience to the aftermarket with the launch of products such as Air Conditioning, shock Absorbers, Batteries, Fuel

Pumps, Catalytic Convertors and more.

The proposed campaign will feature images of the two cars incorporated into advertising copy.

Look out for Dave Koop at the Winternationals at Willow bank in Junennd Mark King competing in the Procar GTP series throughout the year.

For more information on Delphi and their product range visit www.delphi.com

Melbourne rpmFOflM/INCE PnODUCTI

ALUivniuiuivi RADIATORS, INTERCOOLERS & OIL COOLERS ® Offroad cars l Motorbikes l Boats ® Hot Rods ® Street Cars l Circuit Cars Contact Paul Weel on 07 55 981 499 or Fax drawings to 07 55 981 980 HANDBUILt AND ALL AUSTRALIAN MADE

AUHTHAL I

Ph. 02 9758 1986

A

/

44 Racecourse Rd North Melbourne 03 9326 6088

racejv bralces

Sydney Unite 79 Newton Rd Wetherill Park 02 9609 1101

Competition disc pads l Race brakes l Pagid l Hawk l Endless l Performance Friction Over 10 years experience of brake modifications and upgrades for road and race. Caliper conversion 1, 2, 4 & 6 piston. Custom made disc rotors.

Manufacturers & distributors ofi

P

High perfornia

e & racing disc brakes

E

R

FO

RMAN

C

E

Hawk Perlormance disc brake pads have the stopping power and brake _ modulation to reduce lap times and put RACING PRODUCTS you In the winners' circle-with 8 ditferent race oompounds.

MR

Trade enquiries wfelcome

SMUMI

Adverilsers with products lor feature in Industry News should send information to ads@mnews.com.au or to Brendon Sheridan.

Molorsoort News, POBox 7072 Cardenvale VICSfBB

HAWKW

Easy to fit Extra Power Max Engine Protection Used by the Mitsubishi Ralllert WRC team.

Fmx. 02 97SB 1155

Holleu www.holley.com

VIC 37A Fenton St Oakleigh 3166 Ph:03 9543 6222 Fax: 03 9543 6244 QLO 3/26 Expo Crl Ashmore 4214 Ph/Fax: 07 5531 0181 NSW 2/109 Airds SI Minlo NSW 2566 Ph: 02 9820 4255

ilACE PIS7@Ni;

'HEADEDS

A tfcSrj Pcrfenaancg Bzod

AfMtj,]

HPlIgyiB^rfggfhabACSystemipi'stfibutdrs

Now available in 3 sizes 2.4m X 2.4m 3m X 3m 4.5m X 3m to cover airsituations.

Maintenance free.

The 60 second shade structure.

1800 089 089 ^^^ww««p6cirum8jtjj0x^^

INLINE

msnums i M€ESS@ilEi

OmrORMANCE

^^^FORMANCE YKWHOLESALE tro

Phone (07)3808 1986

Visit our website for your nearest distributor.

Call 08 8132 1888 for your nearest distributor | w^)pcirfdrmancewhojgsale 76

9^SHADE SPECTRUM SHADE

8»§»l§ & Ri»l@S wholesales;

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to offering protection, improve efficiency and eliminate problems.

The range oflubricants are not cheap and you will not find them in any discount chain but the distributors claim they will save you money in the long run with less component failure, an extended lubricant life and improved fuel economy.

Many competitors in Formula 1, WRC ancHn top level Australian motor racing currently use Neo One oils and lubricants with great results.

If you have been experiencing an ongoing problem or component failure it may be time to look at your lubrication.

For more information or your nearest distributor contact Aerlei Pty Ltd on 02 9547 3794, visit www.aerlei.com or email enquiries@aerlei.com

Phone (07) 3808 1986

Visit our website for your nearest distributor.

wiiinw.pedormaneewli8lesa1e.c«ih.au moiorspon nows

V

MARKET PLACE

RACE SHOP gives you the opportunity to promote your products and services to the widest possible range of motorspori competitors and enthusiasts. Advertising in RACESHOP costs as little as $60 per issue! Call Brendon Sheridan on 03 9596 5555 now!

ONE PIECE RACE PUSHRODS As used by top touring car. speedway & drag racing teams. l .080" wail chrome moty l one piece construction l available in

diamet

l .050" length steps

^

from 6.00" to 10.00" (y l .080" wall hardened steel NEW street race version^ also available

PO Box 340 Springwood NSW 2777 (02)4751 2473

COMPOMOT/VE MOTORSPORT WHEELS

VIC 03 9386 5331 NSW 02 9676 8655 SA 08 8387 3522 WA 08 9293 3500 TAS 03 6273 7555 NT 08 8941 5388 QLD 07 3217 1188 SlUCKfcY rVRE SERVICE www.stuckey.coni.au

^mSkfORMANCE \^iWHOLESA LEfS

Phone (07) 3808 1986

Visit our website for your nearest distributor.

www.performancewholesale.com.au

F>l*U*l'D

S.Y-S-T-E-M-S

DRY SUMP OIL SYSTEMS & ACCESSORIES ^^^FORMANCE YfWHOLESALE:S

Phone (§7) 3808 1986

Visit our website for your nearest distributor.

www.performancewhelesale.com.au

MAMMY t [(]

E5S5SI' AUSTRAL

29 May 2002

EMuahnOso’

vSmand She best!

High performance engine componenSs tor over 30 years.

Race, strip or street.

Ph. 02 9758 f 966

I

A

g^RyAIME W^ams State Distributors

NSW:(02) 9678 9977 QLD:(07) 3808 1986 VIC:(03)9794 5177 WA:(08)9353 1155 Australlarj Importer and distributor:

Ph: 08 8363 5566 T TECHNOLOGIES Fax: 08 8363 5633 PTY. LTD. www.ctanecams.com.au

CRANE

Trade enquiries welcome Fax. 02 RTSS 11SS

H» PERFORMAWCE ENGINE PARTS#

'LIGHTWEIGHT FIYWHEEIG

The ultimate In strength & safety l Your choice of lightweight steel or alloy l Available for all popular applications including Ford, Cleveland and Windsor V8, Holden 6 & V8, Chev SB & BB V8

Ph 03 9555 5522 Fax 03 9555 4152

P

The world’s strongest and most affordable shaft type roller rocker

ONGtEj ^

SPECIALISTS DESIGN NIOTORSPORT 9530 9011 J

H

— posters -● business cards t motorsport proposals — large murals - websites

SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS

I

World's leaders in Motorsport Safety Technology Helmets ● Suits ● Boots ■ Gloves ● Harnesses ● Crew Gear ● and all accessories for all motorsports Quality ● Price ● Service

Simpson Safety Equipment Australia 91 Rookwood Road Yagoona NSW 2199 Ph 02 9791 6001 Fax 02 9791 6002 AUSTRALIAN

ATINUM

mss. R p C K E R S

CREATIVE The

3

Visit our website: www.crowcams.com.au

Visi^ou^website^wwwcrowcams^^com^a^

SHAFT MOUNTED ROCKER ARM SYSTEMS & CAM DRIVES

VALVE TRAIN INNOVATION

©

p:03 9357 0469 f:03 9357 0001

CROWCAMS

l Fast profile design service to your requirements l Custom ground roller, solid and hydraulic profiles using unique computer controlled machines for unrivalled accuracy ( l Matching race valve train components ^ CAMS including PSi(USA) valve springs and a huge range of one piece super duty ^ pushrods Ph 03 9357 0469 or Fax 03 9357 0001

DISTRIBUTORS

2-day CABflIS 0/R2/MS B.iEence Cssurses @ SraiB 8*ark moaittaSy. $60S Sn your car, Sneiudes C3/R2/5 ©teserwed Licence Tes* and C3 Lecture. R2 OLT can be completed in a single day for $385.

Peter Finlay'?

Racing Drivers School For more info ph 02 9873 1773, fax 02 9871 1018 or email peter@finlays.com.au

hi

A.

» Available in twin shaft and unique single shaft designs for all parallel and cant valve engines o Strongest race rocker available with unique lifetime warranty for road and race applications

Ph 03 9555 5522 Fax 03 9555 4152

^ <C/A"/A/<e'4P'#r###

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r/o.

DrivePerform full-day program can double as your C3 licence ri't/W p lacer evaluation - $330 available.

)L^fUlin9 fasti Enjoy a great day with Championship level instructors in small groups. The following dates are currently available: ● April 4 - Winton ● May 5 - Winton»July 21 - Winton

Call 1300 720 666 to book. All credit cards accepted.

omrEH R ACING PRODUCTS

CRANKSHAFTS, ۩N-R@DS, RACE CAMS &VAU/E TRAIN COM PONENTS ^^P0kl-ORMANCE X^wholesale:;:.

Phone (07) 3808 1986

Visit our website for vour nearest distributor.

www.performancewhdl^i^.com.au ]

motorspori nows

irace shop RADIATOR

sISKYb

LOCK-DOWN SAFETY CAPS

JRACIIMS CAMS

race cams,

WHITE FACED DIALS

VALVE TRAIN TOOLS & COMPONENTS

etnoil: myent@ozeniail.com.au

(

Phone (07) 3808 1986

Also available from

Visit our website for your nearest distributor.

American Tire & Racing Services(02)9790 7571 Performance Wholesale(07) 3808 1986

w«»w-performancewholesaie.com.au

rSIPEEDFLOW^ W Premium Motorsport Hose & Fittings! W n Contact your state distributor...

T

Hardi,nan A,L Supplies (02) 9771 5877 Motorsport Cotmecrions (02) 9838 7272 Victorian Speed Pro (03) 9794-5177 Performance Wholesale '(07) 3808 1986 (08) .8363 5566 Crane Technologies Cogear Racing Services (08) 9443 4400

E

ii |i 1"

I

SACHS

cc eNOintentno

-

RCS - The new racing clutch system from Sachs l 5.760 combinations possible l torque range 300 n 1800 nm l individual tuning to any vehicle Sachs Boge Austrslia Rty Ltd Ph 02 987S 5388 Fax 02 9875 3230 ^ Email: info@sachs-boQe.cQm.au ^

II DVil\MGEA/7 ^

m

America's premium oil pump & timing component manufacturer,

SMISi I

AUSTRAL I

Ph. 02 9758 1966

Remarkable Windows of Opportunity for Engine Experts l Atturale, Repeatable, Versolile

° Take manual conital or hands-free

l Loral design, support, development, instolintion ond on-site training

EiMil oal4ei4CinElbfK.oig.ou

Steel Main Caps to suit most V8 applications

Capri Components

● - '

-v

||Blue & Red motor Holden - $440 incgst EFi manifolds - coming soon.

Manufactured in USA by Pro-Gram Engineering

Ph/Fax 02 9526 6666 Ph Byran Miller« Mobile 0417 274 507 « Ph 02 9524 3389 » 1 Tamba Place Lilli Piili NSW 2229 « Email eastornraceparts@hotmail.com 78

V6-RS3100, MK11.& MKlll 1600 Datsun 240, 260, S80ZX & 300ZX Tuning-repairs mocds-spare parts LAWRIE

Sold in

Aui

tPh 03 5339 51S9 Fax 03 5339 2144

by

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f ll.\.SSIS

DV.^A^^O.MF.TERS

Dynapack Dynometer Service Centres

NELSON

Tel 03 9710 1091 Fax 03 9710 1887 20 Kerrs Rd St Andrews

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ENGINE BEARING

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Widow Maker Speed Shop 07 5491 1869 Hybrid Developments 02 9966 0899

Williamstown Dyno Tune 03 9397 1211

c:?F>SPORTSCARS RACE DESIGNED AERODYNAMICS

V8 Supercar Race and Show Car body kits. Available in i^_^Kevlar/Carbon Fibre, composite and fibrelass (GRP). Repairs also available.

mil mscAR 9 i-7

SMiai I

AUS TRAL I

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Sr,02 9758 11SS

Ph. 02 9758 1966

PORTABLE FLOORING TjeE:

Workshop

Marquee Floor

Display Areas Access Paths

Installs quickly Rolls up for storage

ei

ph 03 9738 1588

».®_ MiBimun ^

Factory 5 48 Malvern Street Bayswater 3153 Mob 0418 374 841

PERFORMANCE €AMS& VALVE TRAIN COMPONENTS

Eastern Raceparts

l IVIocaS * Aircraft Bolts * Girling l Goldine l Silverline

RJi

Ph 07 3800 9188 Fax 073800 9177 ABN 23091 653 815

Up to 30ft/lb torque nd 40 hp gam over similar manitolds.

We also have manifolds to suit: XE, XF 250 X-Flow Fa lcon - $440 mcgst

1

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tnformaliofl and « domonstroHon contact:

JpEyDynolofl Dynamometer

h

H A/e Id/ & used karts H Servicing H spares H Heimets H Suits & all your karting needs Factory 9,19-25 Grange Rd Cheltenham VIC Ph 03 9585 5340 Fax 03 9585 5320

P For

AREX Compuling ro Box 1 SI Montrose Vir 3765 Hi039751 1!« fox039751 2173 Mob(MOB 055 541

P

TRADE ENQUIRIES WELCOME

{flSEMimSiamSSm Will suit V8. 2V or 4V Cleveland.

l Top names demond lop equipment (users inc IIIZPRO, HSV, HRT & John Sidney Racing) l Engine, chassis, go-kort or motorbike

Available for Commodore VN to VT, EF to AU Falcon, BMW, Lancer, Magna 8i Excel Ph 08 8371 1500 Mob 0418 600 751 AUTOAfOT/Wg

/nc GST ^^1

Trade enquiries welcome Fax. 02 9758 11S5

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300230

●j66cr rj

tJ

fSOSOOf raglstored Evary pump ia o/l tastod for corract praasura S voluma.

Quality assurad.

,

^^h^FORMANCE T^aIvholesalezs,

dealer enquiries by Phoning 0413 520 852

1

4 * * i '3

tAy Enterprises can help you with any

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lAi. *^^lhuORMANCE fHWHOLESALEES

Phone (07) 3808 1986

VLsil our website for your nearest distributor.

www.performancewhblesale.com.au

www.pro-floor.com l ph 03 9804 3455 Race logistics RACELOGtsTCs interstate transport ALL ROUNDS ALL CLASSES Fully enclosed custom built race car transporters Professional race car logistic and event specialists Security for car and equipment

1

Contact Neil Griffiths on 0418 474 816

race@tnt.com.au

t

moiorsDon nows

MARKET PLACE

H H

i

IFREE Sedans/Sports Cars

Classifieds

2 issues

absolutelyfree*

*Motorsport News Classifieds are FREE for private sales. Classifieds from motor sport traders are accepted (marked with a ●) and must be prepaid at the following per issue rates: $5 per 10 words (min SIO per ad), photo $10. Further enquiries to our advertising department on 03 9596 5555.

Classifieds can be mailed, faxed or emailed. Classifieds are not accepted over the telephone.

Forward to Motorsport News Free Classifieds, 357 Nepean Highway Brighton East 3187. Fax: 03 9596 5030. Email: mnews@mnews.com.au. Make sure to list your category.

Troy 0415 197 697 or 02 6331 3034.233

ft -

1m36s, Calder 65s. $11,000 with spares, must sell, ph Paul 0408 550 677 or 03 9729 1496.232

Commodore Cup car, 253 blueprint by Chris Milton, lOOOkms, solid lift cam, 30 thou piston, full spec race gearbox, Tex T 10, Z ration, ready to race. $26,500 ono, ph 0413 795 294.232

VT Commodore, last driven in Adelaide 500, $165,000ono, ph Tomas Mezera 0418 747 976.233

GT Performance VX GTS 300kw, latest spec car, brake upgrade, ready to win races! For sale at a realistic price, we are open to offers. Ph Craig 0407 724 862.233

Lancer EVO III, GSR 95 Model, white, 61,000km, factory 200kw, full electrics, never raced or rallied. Regretful sale, reg and RWC, Reg QZB 244. $28,000 ono, ph 03 9799 9106 (h) or 0413 536 801.233

-i

Mitsubishi FTO, 2001 GTP Championship winning car. 3 wins and a 2nd already this year.

Most reliable car in the field. Eligible for Prod Sports Car/ Street Sedans. $29,000 ono Ph 0413 597 095.233

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII, brand new vehicle, just landed, R5 Brembo brakes, change of plans, available for immediate delivery exSydney, $62,500 duty & tax paid, ph 0418 444 443 or 02 9684 6666. 233

space frame, fibre/g panels, rolling chassis, fully refurbished for 2001/2002 season (not raced).

Suit Ford engine. No expense spared - new suspension, Hewland gear train, LSD, race clutch pack, numerous extras. Bargain at $18,000, Ph Luke 0418 582 882.233

p S

'41*.

3^

V8 BRute, 2001 Champ'ship-winning Holden, (re-advertised), complete with Holden license, spares, data logging & prepared ready to race. Ph Rod Wilson 03 9872 4522 or 0417 511 911 , 233 V8 Datsun 1600, 4.4 Itr aluminium V8, steelcase 5 speed,14x7.5 & 14x8.5 three piece wheels, 6pt bolt in steel cage.flared guards. Heaps of potential, dark blue. $3000 ph 03 5126 1791ah 233 [-IQ Holden Race Car, front running car in 2001. Reconditioned engine. Diff and gearbox two races old. Ready to race. $3500ono. Ph

29 Haw 2002

Torana A9X, GMP + A shell, Gp C running gear.

Complete. Built by Fetter Molloy. Never raced or registered, 300km. Offers, ph 08 9306 3221.232 Torana Sports Sedan, 202 5 speed, fibreglass, quick and ready to race, spares inc rims, spoilers, moulds, diff, springs, bootlid. Must sell due to new project. $8500 ono, ph Michael 02 4774 0607 bh or 02 4731 1574 ah. 232 Toyota Corolla improved Production car, 4 AGE 20 valve engine, Autronic engine management, close ratio GRP, 4.3 LSD Sparco seat, Sparco 6

FVFI Facing has one of its Ford Dealer Team Falcons for lease/buy 2002 season. Ready now for the right driver. Top vehicle, no expense spared. Full dealer team preparation, back up 81 sponsorship in package. Qld and Vic based.

Great opportunity. Ph James 0416 325 i26.233

point harness, Koni suspension, $14,000. Ph 07 3207 8559.232

RX7 Club Car, Inj 13B, Wolf 3D, Needham 5sp, MS Full Floater rear with Torsen diff, 4 spots, adj front and rear platforms, Bilsteins, adj brake bias, alloy cage and fuel tank, 2 piece T/shaft. Successful top car. Many spares. $22,000 ph 0418 824 282.

Concours Mustang 1965 302, Notchback in race trim, spent eighty thousand pounds sterling to prepare to this stage, will be irreplaceable at $80,000, for sale due to personal problems, ph Morris Miles 9888 7992 or 0419 335 670. 233

2 litre Sports Sedan, winner 2000 SRS and 2001 USSA championship. Mk II Escort - full

Falcon EL Grp N spec, cage, fuel ceil, Bilsteins, 18 wheels, spare engine plus heaps of spares, needs front panels suit SS or raiiy. $15,000 the lot, ph 02 9829 8700.232

GTP XR6 AUll Falcon, ex Longhurst as raced at Bathurst 99/00. Upgraded to AUll spec as per Procar requirements. Perfect entry level car. List of spares. $35,000. Ph Guy on 07 3343 1566. 233 HQ Holden race car, NSW #52 Div 1 car, front running car, loads of spares, wheels, gearbox, diff & more dyno sheets available. $5500 ono.

Ph Peter Hogan 02 4646 1033 24 hrs. 233 Escort Twin Cam 1970 road car, STC spec, full drivetrain/suspension/brake rebuild, very original low .mileage collectible classic. $13,750, ph 0407 002 726.233 Golf GTI, 16 valve 3 door UK spec, C/R gearbox, LSD, service records, excellent body/mech condition, outperforms VRG, very collectable classic hatch. $14,975, ph 0407 002 726. 233 TG Gemini dub sprint car. Group 5 - Class F. Mild 2L. 5sp. Runs 2:07 Phillip Island.$3500 ph 5622 1909.233 TG Gemini club sprint car, 2001 Group 5 championship winning car - Class E. Fully worked 1600. 5sp. Spare 4pot brakes. Runs 2:04 Phillip Island. $5500 ph 5622 1909.333

VR Commodore AUSCAR converted to flat track car, 308-450hp carburetted. 300-400kms, Tex T10. W ratio, Harrop front brakes, suit Sports Sedan or Future Tourer with some minor work. $26,500 ono, ph 0413 795 294.232

HDT VC Group C, Marranello red, injected 355 stroker, super TIO, LSD, Harrop rose jointed suspension with watts linkage, drop tank, roll cage, VL turbo brakes, HDT endorsement, papers, 33,000 original kms, engineers certificate, rego and RWC, $17,000 neg, ph 03 9899 4798 or 0409 290 576. 232

VR Commodore, 5.7 It Holden, new motor. injected, dry sump, Motec, 5 spd, Harrop front end, 6 pot brakes, spares etc. Running as a Sports Sedan. Ph Steve 07 3397 7833 w or 07 3398 4692 ah. 232

Ford EA 1989, Saloon car, front runner, finished 4th 2001 National Championship, no e,xpense spared, ready to race. $27,000, ph 02 9636 5411.

232

7 4«

Q

Saloon Car #399 Commodore, two races since rebuild, some spares, 1.26sec lap at QR, no expense spared, $25,000, must sell. Ph 07 3209 8755 or 0409 875 894.232 Mazda RX7, Series 5 13b Turbo. Sin exhaust, Simpson harness, dual axle trailer, all in excellent condition (not for road registration), $8,000 ono, ph 02 4626 1935.232

Mazda RX3 Coupe, Improved Production car, #77, 2nd outright 2001 VMRC, lOOlo finishing record. 13B Bridgeport 5 speed 4.4 diff and new brakes. Heaps of spares. Fast reliable competitive car, ready to race. Phillip Island ImBOs, Winton

Saloon Car EA Falcon, super service, race engine, very quick, Sparco seat, CAMS rego for National Series, comes with spare body shell. $17,000, ph 3808 5977. >32 Mazda RX7 Club Car, reco auto style motor, reco CR g/box Bilsteins sup, 4 spot alloy brakes, many spares, $15,500 ph Andrew 03 9432 3259 ah or 03 9376 5222 bh in Nissan Skyline Sports Sedan, (Fat Thing) needs work but most of the hard stuff is done. Has 17x1 1 Simmons/new slicks etc. Call for more information, $10,000, ph 0418 244 266. .m; Porsche 944 turbo, 5-speed left-hand drive, can be converted for Australian compliance, $1 1750 ono, ph 07 3800 7371 or 0412 578 474. 21,

79

Honda CRX zc twincam 5-speed 1/2 cage CAMS logbook, ao32 Yokohamas, some spares. $7000, ph 07 3800 7371 or 0412 578 474.232 Ford EA 1989, Saloon car, front runner, finished 4th 2001 National Championship, no expense spared, ready to race. $27,000, ph 02 9636 541 1. 232 .

Halt RT4/81 Formula Atlantic FT200, complete minus engine, stored for 12 years. $25,000 Aust, ph Ken Smith NZ 64 9 274 8646 or fax 64 9 274 8642.232

Open Wheelers

Formula Vee Sabre, latest body brand new,, powdercoat too many spares to describe spare engine, latest spec engine with 1600 rockers 1 meeting old, selling due move to another category, $12990 ono. 03 97906204 or 0409 023060.233

Dallara 396, ex-Z Speed Racing (British F3 Championship team) 1996 British championship (Martin Byford), ex-Team BRM (Daynom Templeman), 3rd 2001 Australian F3 championship (3 round wins). Package inc Dallara 396 chassis, factory prepared and maintained Speiss Opel engine, Bosch ECU, PI System 2 Club Expert Plus, two sets of wheels (one mounted with wets)) spares includes front and rear floor, nosebox, nose cover, front wing, rear wing, numerous suspension pieces, lots more. A good selection of gear ratios, assistance $72,000. Ph Bronte Bundle 08 8 8332 5585 h, 08 8 8254 8444 w, or 0412 846 997.232

CRD 8S2 Formula Two with Historic Group R, Log Book,fuli race history available, very reliable, fresh Ford engine, Hewland gearbox, Jarge amount of spares inc, mounted wets, spares ratios, suspension, engine parts. $18500 ono. Ph' Ian 0417 851 716 or 03 9878 9515.233 Formula Vee 92 Bee Cee, 1998 State Championship winner. Spare panels and semienclosed trailer. $8,500. Ph Shane Hart 07 32694134 w or 0412 916069.233 Formula Holden, Strike with complete spares, body moulds. Silver Star & Aust Hiliclimb winner.

Elfin 400 front wheel. Ph 08 8554 9559.233 Historic Formula Ford, Bowin P6F 1973, Grp Q, Restored 99%, all previous history available for log book, $17,500, ph 0418 509 145. 233

Historic MG TC, built by Bruderiin & Thomas in NSW, 1958, ex-Peter Candy. New Tate ISOOcc supercharged eng, new wheels, tyres, brakes, EC. $29,500. Ph 03 9889 5777. 232

Dallara 398, ex-Carlin Motorsport (British F3 Championship team), 1999 Indian GP winner (Narain Karthikeian), ex-Team BRM (Darren Palmer), 2nd 2001 Aust F3 championship (2 round wins). Package inc Dallara 398 chassis, factory prepared & maintained Speiss Opel engine, Bosch ECU, PI System 3 Version 6, 2 sets of wheels (one mounted with wets), spares inc front & rear floor, nosebox, nose cover, front wing, rear wing, many suspension pieces, barge boards, tyre ramps, more. Good selection of gear ratios, assistance PDA. Ph Bronte Bundle 08 8 8332 5585ah, 08 8 8254 8444bh, or 0412 846 997.232

rr /1

I'

l'!

Litre car, Ex-Troy Little Jack Rich USA chassis. All top shelf equipment, fresh A.15. $13,500 for full details of car. Ph Brian 02 4577 5944.233 Super Sedan VS Commodore, Vic 38 ready to race with spares inci 6 wheels and tyres, fresh eng trans, quickchange. Girdlestone chassis wide fives, Willwood brakes, p/steering. $15,000, ph Col 03 9785 1422.233

Litre Sprintcar, Challenger chassis, B5 Mazda, Hilbourne inj, crank trigger inj, Schroeder box, Halibrand rear end, weld and Duralite wheels, Sanders driveline, good 'A' Grade car, spare wings, engine and components. $12,000ono, ph Alshley 0412 979 158.232 Arrow AX6 chassis, complete with Yamaha lOOJ engine. Motor has only had 3 practice sessions(not raced) and is in 'as new' condition. Overall kart is in excellent condition and is ready to race. $2600, ph 0418 880 791.232 Ralt RT4/81 Formula Atlantic FT200 1600 BDA, complete as raced, $35,000 Aust, Ph Ken Smith NZ 64 9 274 8646 or fax 64 9 274 8642.232

Speedway Litre Sprintcar, Ellis Speedcar chassis, new 15 Datsun. Hilbourne inj. Vertex magneto, dry sump.

Winters 2 1/2" slider rear end, Schroeder box, Sanders direct mount front end, Willwood brakes, Sanders driveline, weld and Duralite wheels. Best money can buy, heaps of spares. $20,000 ono, ph Alshley 0412 979 158.232 Sprintcar - Sportsmans, 186 Holden methanol engine, 3 speed box, mags, fresh paint, Lukey exhaust, race ready, class still running at Drouin & Bairnsdale, good hillclimber. $2000, ph 03 5134 8438.233

Sprintcar J8J 1997 Roller, all good gear, ex-Max Dumesny, wide 5 front end, hollow bolt kit, titanium drive line & stops, fresh powercoat & paint. $12,500. For details ph Brian 02 4577 5944.

233

Litre Sprintcar NSW 95, Gerhardt Highbar, Kawasaki, Motec fuel injection, MTC head 8 plugs, Falican crank, Wiseco pistons, Kirkey seat, 16 wheels and tyres, as new and much more. All offers considered, ph 02 4973 1681.232

Sprintcar chassis, 1995 Gambler low bar, complete with panel kit, lightweight crash bars and wing trees, motor plate, plus more, $1800, ph 0416 194 763.232

Sprintcar chassis, 1998 Avenger 'Safety Cage'.

Complete with lightweight motor plate, stainless steel crash bars, dash, floor, fibreglass panels with scoop, lightweight wing trees, plus more, 35 races, $2500, ph 0416 194 763.232 Sprintcar Maxim, three shows old, KSE steering.

Winters diff, Sanders wheels, Willwood brakes, complete roller, fresh powdercoat, new body, $20,000, ph 03 9735 1307.232 2001 Eagle Sprintcar, KSE steering. Winters diff, Sanders wheels, complete car, e/cond, 372 engine, alloy heads, Hilbourne inj, Carrilo rods, JE pistons, dry sump, $34,000, will sep, ph 03 9735 1307.232 Super Sedan chassis, AU Falcon, fibreglass bodykit complete« less running gear, EC, $2,000ono, ph 02 4730 3440 or 0419 989 010.232 Sprintcar fuel tank, midget size, fuel safe bladder and new top plate, good condition, $600, ph 0416 194 763.232 Standard Saloon, HQ 308 Saginaw gearbox, Salsbury diff, power steering, new suspension, c/w spare car, diffs, panels etc ind belts. Current Vic 3, ready to race. $3000, ph 03 5126 1563 ah, 03 5126 2822 bh, 0409 511, 774 mob. 232

Drag Racing Carby tool tray, Moroso, $160, Carby: Gold Claw 825, Barry Grant, $1450, Collectors: (merged) 2 1/4" X 4", Smiley's, $330 pair. Con rods: 6" - large journal, Carillo and CARR bolts, $3200, Filler neck - billet. Aerospace, $270, Flex plate bolts, 7/16" (Chev/Ford), ARP, $30, Fluidampner 7 1/4" for internal balance $620, fuel regulator (billet) - 2 port, Aurospace, $200, mounts (engine) Eurathane, TCI, $200 pair, mount (trans) Eurathane, TCI suit T-350, $60, oil filler cap - Billet, Stef's, $50, shifter - quarter stick, Hurst suit 350 + 400, $350, shifter Solenoid (1-2 shift), Hurst (suit above), $250, shifter cover, Hurst (suit above), $120, Shifter knob - carbon fibre, Hurst (suit above), $70, Tappet covers - carbon fibre (tall), $350, Telescopic fuel log - billet, DaVinci - suit 950 carb $330, Thermo switch, Moroso, $60, Trans shield - Kevlar, C5I Turbo 350 $680, trans sump aluminium, Stef's Turbo 350 $360, trans cooler + 10" fan, Perma-Cool $380, trans dip stick -

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MARKET PLACE chrome, suit Turbo 350 $80, trans dip stick - Billet, suit Turbo 350, $160, ph 0418 228 438. 232

Engines Ford Cosworth BDD Engine, complete inci carbs, starter, flywheel and 2 plate clutch. Dual ignition as per Ralt RT4. Only 2 meetings since overhaul.

Ph:(02)9949-3996. 233 Toyota 4AGE, 16V 99.6kW @ Wheels,Dyno sheets available. Increased compression, 9mm 310deg Tighe camshafts. Fully balanced, large injectors, one race since rebuild. Mapping data available Ph:0427 057492.233 Holden 6 cylinder. Bill Mann bottom end. XUl spec cylinder head. Brass button race clutch, roller rockers. High volume oil pump. Romac harmonic balancer. 35/75 cam. Just been freshened up.

Strong street/strip/track engine. $1200 ono, ph 02 6624 7593 ah. 232

Parts Datsun A' series option 5 speed gearbox.

Ratios 1st 3.757-1 2nd 3.247-1 3rd 1,659-1 4th 1.291-1 5th 1-1 R4.040-1 plus steel lightened and balanced flywheel to suit. $1500, ph (03) 51261791 ah (Vic). 233 Hewland FT200 Transaxle, Outboard brake model ex Ralt RT4. Lots of ratios. Only 2 meetings since overhaul. Ph:(02)9949-3996.233 Quaife LSD suit Escort, Brand new, never used cost over $2000, sell $1600. Ph: 0427 233 350 Chev parts, Yella Terra YT5001 adjustable roller rockers (new) $540, Romac alloy balancer P/N0202AAPro Series (350, new) $250, Crane 99277-16 anti pump lifters (350, new)$100, Scatt cast crank SC 10442 (new) $350, GM/Bowtie replacement quote 4 bolt (new) $1800, Scatt I Beam 1200S 5.700 (new) $320, Rollmaster P/N CSIOOO timing chain kit (new) $75, ACL Larry Perkins race series pistons(new)4420, Brodix track 1 heads fully hanrJ-ported $2000, complete with ferrea stainless valves, esky springs, titanium retainers, locks. Ph 0419 188 010.233 AP 6-spot calipers, latest spec, $3800, ph 03 6243 6000 or 03 6249 2684 (ah). 233 Escort 3 rail C/R gearbox $1200, 3.9/4.1 cwp $175 each, Fierra 4.8/4.7 cwp new $795 each, 28 spijne LSD new $895, 25 spline LSD used $495, Fierra 5 link housing/LSD/4 calipers, $1500, ph 0407 002 726.233 Ohiins race shocks, set of fojjr,JuUy adjustable rebound and compression damping, steel body, suit Formula Ford or similar. $4000 ono, ph 0408 713 712.233 Holden 308 L34 (genuine) twin point distributor, complete $575, Ph 0428 535 245 (Melb). 233 Refuelling rig, 200 litre overhead tank with all hoses, wiring and fittings. Also two churns and one vent bottle. Perfect for 24hr race. Ph 02 9630 6509 or 0418 217 451.233

$300, ph 0417 558 452.232 Chev Pro Action, 14. heads, hand ported, brand new with flow sheets, $7500, ph 08 9349 8959 or 0414 349 895 (Perth). 232 Car bra to suit Lantra, VGC, black, $100, ph 03 5331 4023.232 6 cylinder parts 2 cam shafts, 35/75 (Ivan tyre) and a 104 waggot. Romac bolt on harmonic balancer 1.6 chev roller rockers with guide plates and brass bobbins. 2 veriejet carbys ex-malrose, exHallidays engineering, ported and flowed blue motor manifold, JP high volume water pump, steel 186 crankshaft, finer filter air filter. $450 ono, ph 02 6624 7593 ah. 232 Tilton master cylinders, 7/8" x 2 c/w Tilton balance bar and 7-pos lever prop valve. All unused, urgent sale. $700, ph 03 5766 2815.232 l Race seats, top quality imported race seats at wholesale prices. Ph 02 6562 7762 or 0412 785 486. l Clutches, 7.25, 5.5, 5.0 single, twin, triple plate, sintered or carbon, AP-Tilton-QM, new/used. Spare covers, rings, plates also available. CCI Ph 0418 925 767. l Pedals, brake/clutch, floor mount/hanging, new/sued. Also available, bias valves, bias cables, master cylinders, resen/oirs etc. CCI Ph 0418 925 767. l Air jacks, new/used, large range, most applications, quick release handles available, top quality. CCI. Ph 0418 925 767. l Brake calipers, discs, pads. Mega range, new/used, exc condition - AP, Alcon, Brembo, Outlaw, Willwood. Overnight delivery. CCI Ph 0418 925 767. l Flewland, DGB, 5 speed transaxle, top condition, new 9:31 CWP, ratio choices and spares available, $14K ratios, over 300 in stock to suit DGB, GFGB, TPT, FT200. CCI Ph 0418 925 767. l Oil coolers - heat exchangers, Earls, Setrab, Serck, 6-70 row, new/used, also used water to oil heat exchangers, over 100 in stock. CCI Ph 0418 925 767. l Racecar parts, brake parts, chassis stands, diff oil pumps, exhaust collectors, fuel cell accessories, oil filters, quicklift jacks, ratio boxes, radiator caps, springs, spoilers, wings etc. CCI Ph 0418 925 767. l Uprights, fabricated/cast, fronts/rears, various sizes, new/used, also CVs, driveshafts, wishbones, rockers, pushrods, all top quality, exc condition.

CCI Ph 0418 925 767. l Radiators, aluminium, new/used, single/dual pass, top quality, large range, various sizes, suit all applications, fr $300. CCI Ph 0418 925 767. '

Trailer single axle, full checker plate floor 12x 7'6, electric brakes,jockey wheel suit Formula Ford, Vee etc. VGC. $1375 ph 0412 421 126 (Bris). 233

produced. This model is very rare and highly sought after. Personally signed by Dick himself. $500. Ph 03 9720 5667.232

\ li Enclosed racecar trailer 18', absolutely first class in design and appearance, full internal fitout including purpose-built parts cabinets, tyre and fuel, storage spare diff and front axle rack, bench, fluro lighting, 7 kva generator, 12 CFM compressor, ROH wheels with light truck tyres, aluminium cheq, plate floor and front stoneguard, electric brakes with breakaway, power points, safety switch, side door, nosecone. One owner, used for sprintcar. $16,000, ph 0416 194 763.232 253

O'

UD transporter 28ft pan, rebuilt engine, new brakes, driveline, living quarters, 240/12v power, fully equipped, professionally built cupboards, aero kit, CD player, sleep 5, belly lockers. $45,000, ph 03 9735 1307.232

1" I

Enclosed trailer 27' long, stainless steel benchtops, cupboard space, elearic rear door, hydraulic tongue jack, US built, good condition. $14,000, ph 0438 006 912.232 Coach transporter, 37ft mid-mount, 250hp, turbo Volvo, 4 speed, pre-seleaed gearbox, air brakes, tubeless tyres. EC. $14,000. Ph 02 4730 3440 or 0419 989 010. 232

Other

Transporlers/Trailers

Hino GD170 h.p. 83 model, excellent mechanical condition very reliable 15' pan belly lockers power winch ramps etc. Must sell bought another transporter best offer around $12000 an absolute bargain. 03/9790 6204 or 0409 023060.233

29 May 2002

Complete set of Peter Brock plates, 17 in total, all in original boxes and with certificates of authenticity. $1500 the set or make an offer. Ph 6292 1670 or 0412 055 377. 232 Automobile year, 17 and 18 $225 each, 19, 20 and 21 $180 each. Bathurst and James Hardie 1000 Yearbooks 1981-88 $40 each, more items available. Ph 0411 404 560 ah. 232

Motor

Tours:

l One call does it all - Event List Darwin, Supercars, 17-19 May, fr $649pp, Canberra 400, 7-9 June, fr $499pp, Barbagallo WA, 28-30 June, fr $499pp. Hidden Valley, Darwin, 22-25 August, Legends of Motorsport, fr $649pp, QLD 500, 13-15 September, fr $249pp, V8 SUPERCAR 1000 - BATHURST, IQ13 OCTOBER, fr $319pp, Phillip Island, 18-20 October, fr $319pp, MOTO 6P Championship, from $379pp, Honda Indy 300, 24-27 Oaober, fr $399pp. Stadium Australia, 26 Oaober, World Solo Speedway Champs Final fr $399pp, NZ V8 Supercars available soon. Most packages inc accommodation b/fast, ticketing, transfers, MST event pack, gst, booking & service fees.

Enquiries/bookings call Motor Sport Tours Pty Ltd. Ph. 07 4691 5833 Fax 07 4691 5733 or 0412 900 228, postal address PO BOX 83 Oakey QLD 4401.

Email - motorsportours@ozemail.com.au Web - www.motorsportours.com l Driving suits, top brand imported race suits, boots, gloves etc. Many styles & colours at wholesale prices.

Ph 02 6562 7762 or 0412 785 486. i

Racing Car News magazines, in GC. Jan to Oa inclusive -r Dec. 1967, Feb, Mar, June, July, Aug, Sept andDec 1968, July 1969, April, June, July, Ort and Dec 1970, June and July 1971, Jan 1972.

Contact Jim 02 9828 9222 bh or email Jason Bargwanna Phillip Island wheel coffee table, original wheel from Phillip Island crash, signed Jason Bargwanna PI 2002, great conversation piece for all motorsport fans. $950, ph 03 9761 0622 or 0418 383 454.233 ® Burettes, lOcc, 25cc, 50cc, 75cc, lOOcc, scales, digital, accurate 0.001 g. Also other accurate measuring containers, beakers etc. Ph Matt at Race Lab 0419 734 387.233

Supercar/Sports Sedan $2800, VStailshaft suit 6 speed $500, JFZ adjustable rear coil over shocks POA, Endless pads MA 45 new. Roller rockers T&D 450 offset Chev $ 1200, Isky 150' offset roller lifters

Queensland Raceway Competitor Level pass, free praaice, circuit entry, discounts, VIP carparking and other member benefits, $1250 plus transfer fee. Ph Matt 0419 728 701.232 John Force Collection, 14 1/64 scale. Action cars in packets, 2 1/43 scale Corgi cars, 1 1/4 scale helmet. $180. Ph 02 9987 0330.232 Automobile Yearbooks, 14-34(1966-1986) excellent condition. 1958, 1959, 1960 & 1963, no cover sleeves on these four. $1000 the lot. Ph 02 9987 0330.232

Wanted

Enclosed trailer, tandem, amsolutely immaculate, always garaged, elearic winch, twin spares, suit race, sports or medium tourer, elearic brakes. $10,000, ph 08 8370 2000 or 0418 840 420. 233

Sequential four speed bolt on shifters, for Toploader, T/10, Muncie and other Aussie four speed. Visit http://renagate.com. $580 + GST, Ph 03 9807 1334 or 0417 107 140. 232 Brake pads, EBC Greenstuff, front and rear, suit VX/VT 55 Commodore, street/track use, only on car for three weeks (never used on track), $145 ono for both sets, ph 08 8266 3214.232 Hollinger gear set,8 dog straight cut V5/VT input will separate, 5 stud speedline wheels suit Holden

Bathurst programs, 73, 74, 77($75 each), 80-88 ($50 each)93, 96, 97($40 each), 85 Sandown 500 ($50). Ph Glenn Auckland NZ 09 571 334. 233 Dick Johnson Racing Ford Falcon XE Bathurst 1984 Palmer Tube Mills Biante 1:18 scale model, mint condition and boxed. No 658 of only 5100

f New tillable tri-axle car carrier, red duce, inside dimensions are height 5ft, width 6ft 6 inches, length 22ft. Spring loaded rear door with extra ramps, 240 volt and 12 volt lighting with powerpoints and air compressor. Black & white chequered vinyl tiling throughout. Everything including tyres are new. For colour photos email pontiacaustralia@yahoo.com. $15,000, ph 03 9310 1466 bh or 0400 -424 259.233

Magazines 81 programs: Aus GP, Bathurst, Thuderdome. magazines: mid-80s - Racing Car News, Chequered Flag, Australian Motor Racing and GT Thunderdome. Ph 0408 319 954.233 Drive available, one-off Formula Ford DTE National Rds, Bathurst, possibly Indy & QLD series fr $5,000. Ph 07 5446 7611 or 0411 052 944. 233 SPARCO Karting Suit, Jesolo, Blue & While. Size 60(XXL). Hardly used and in good condition. $285.

SPARCO Rib Proteaing Vest, Red, Size 3(XL). Near new. $55. Both $300. 0411 101-977 Syd. 233 Grand Prix videos, large selection. Other motorsport videos, mags and memorabilia. Email for list, brendon®grog2go.com. 233 Great opportunity to expand your automotive library, many of offer no longer available. Aust competition Y/books 1975, 1976, No 8 plus Aust Motor Racing Y/books Nos 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Various prices, ph 0408 413 309 or email stuarlbowes@bigpond.com. 233

jim.funston@subaru.com.au. 233 Tasmanian Motorsport Magazine, Issues Sept/Oct/Nov 1965, Feb/Apr/June 1966 and Feb 1967. Need to complete colledion for research.

Pay good $$. Can swap issues or sell some issues outright including big Longford 1965 issue, ph 0411 101-977 (Syd). 233 LSD Centre, suit 66 Mk 1 Cortina, ratio not required, have plenty, must be in GC. Ph Russ 03 9499 3368.233 Escort or Cortina diff 4.4 Ph 03 6243 6000 or 03 6249 2684.233 Drivers required for 12 hr Malaysian enduro and 24 hr Bathurst enduro, must have budget. Brand new car! Call Kosi 0419 524 752.232 Kerry George Kokotis, a driver with awesome ability looking for a chance! In V8 Supercars, Konica, or GTPI 1 don't promise podiums, I promise top 10! I'm a driver, ph 0418 835 727.232 Disc Rotors AP or Brembp ventilated 13" (330 mm)X 30 mm thick without top hats, must be in useable condition, Ph 0415 621 898 or 0408 162 762 (Syd). 232 Dymag 1 piece wheels wanted to suit Ralt RT4, any style from three to seven spoke or slotted, rear wheels must be 14" wide. Ph John 0418 736 869 bh or Tony 07 3359 4222 ah. m Pit crew required by a Melb-based Super Touring Team on a voluntary basis. Previous experience an advantage but not necessary. All expenses paid by the team. Ph 03 9790 5322 or 0409 023 060. >12

OPINION

mtisrsoM EDITORIAL STAFF

Editor: Phil Branagan l editor@mnews.com.au Assistant Editor: Aaron Noonan l noonz@mnews.com.au Staff Journalist: Mark Glendenning l mark@mnew5.com.au

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CONTACTS 357 Nepean Highway, Brighton East Vic 3187 (PO Box 1010 North Caulfield Vic 3161) Ph: 03 9596 5555 Fax: 03 9596 5030' Email: mnews@mnews.com.au

CONTRIRUTORS General: Grant Nicholas, Darryl Flack, Mark Jones, Jon Thomson FI: Joe Saward, Adam Cooper Europe: Quentin Spurring, Gary Watkins US: Phil Morris Speedway: Brett Swanson, Julie Pearce, Geoff Rounds, Wade Aunger, Tony Millard (UK), Greg Boscato Rally: Jon Thomson Histories: Brian Reed Drag Racing: Greg Ward, Jon Asher (USA), Dave Ostaszewski (USA), Nick Nicholas, Steven White, Ken Ferguson Super Speedway: Martin D Clark (USA) National: Mark Wicks, Sean Henshelwood, Erin McCowatt Photographers: Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, Bothwell Photographic, Marshall Cass, Nigel Snowdon & Diana Burnett, API images, Neil Hammond, Slipstream Photographic, Phil Williams, Allsport, John Morris/Mpix, Frank Midgley, Peter Bury, Mike Patrick (UK), Peter French, Chris Carter, James Smith, Paris Charles, Bob Potts Cartoonist: Allan Schofield Motorsport News is published by Australasian Motorsport News - ABN 55 125 120 702 Publisher: C Lambden Printed by: Offset Alpine Printing Pty Ltd, Lidcombe, NSW. Distributed by: NDD Ltd Material published by MOTORSPORT NEWS is copyright and may not be reproduced in full or in part without the written permission of the publisher. Freelance contributions are welcome, and while all care will be taken, Australasian Motorsport News does not accept responsibility for damage or loss of material submitted. ●Opinions expressed in Motorsport News are not necessarily those of Australasian Motorsport News or its staff.

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82

n

Mitsubishi’s biggest fan

As a die-hard Mitsubishi and Chrysler fan, I would like to comment on the rumoured Magna V8 Supercar.

The project should only go ahead if the car is fitted with a Chrysler or Mitsubishi engine.

I’ve never heard of a Mitsubishi V8 in Japan, so I guess that it will have to be a Chrysler. If the Magna is fitted with a Chev or Ford engine, the project will be a total failure, because NOBODY will support it!

The Ford and Holden fans will hate it, because it’s a Mitsubishi, and us Mitsubishi and Chrysler fans will absolutely loathe the car if it has the enemy’s engine under the bonnet!

The Dodge V8 sounds like the best option for everyone!

Rusty Marsh, Bathurst, NSW

Racing, schmacing Well I just wasted another two and a half hours on a Sunday afternoon watching another TWR driving demonstration.

I am a fan of Ingall and Lowndes, so I am not biased towards either brand of car, but it is now becoming a joke.

We definitely won’t be going to Oran Park because the HRT have not been beaten there since about 1997, so why waste our time and money?

The main problem with motor racing now is that the other classes really suck.

We used to enjoy the truck races at Oran Park but we went to the last one and could not believe the rubbish they expect you to watch with them now. Super Tourers are dead, Future Tourers are rubbish.

A Magna with a Holden V8? That’s a Sports Sedan, isn't it?

NASCAR has one or two good drivers and the cars should be driving in the historic classes.

We thought we would give the Nations Cup meeting a go - it was worse. Mitsubishi Mirages, GT Production and GT Performance?

You have to be kidding. The crowd were bored stiff and you could count the people on the hill it looked like crowds the Super Tourers used to get.

Thank God for the V8 BRutes, who supplied some entertainment.

The Nations Cup cars were good but need more front-running cars.

We are going to give the Konica round a go. Hopefully they will have decent support classes. Bring back the HQ's, Sports Sedans and Appendix J tourers - at least they provide good entertainment for your money.

Neil Stratton Hornsby, NSW

Is there any standard requirements, or are they free of any restrictions?

Brien Harrigan brilligan@ozemail.com.au

Lowering the flag

converter Send us your thoughts: mail: 357 Nepean Highway, Brighton East, VIC 3187 fax: 03 9596 5030 email: mnews@mnews.com.au Remembering Stichbury To all of Ashley Stichbury’s family, friends, and acquaintances, heartfelt sympathies to you.

To see Greg Murphy’s memorial on his seat and helmet on the television at Hidden Valley was befitting of their relationship.

It started years ago at the Hawke’s Bay Kart Club. Sadly, their rise in motorsport was not synonymous.

Whoever said heaven was a half pipe was a lying bastard, we all know it is a race track. And we all know who will be qualifying at the sharp end of the field - no doubt about it!

Ashley Stichbury - a great guy who deserved better than the plate he got, but who made the most of the plate he had!

An inspiration in ways that he will never know, nor perhaps understand.

In mourning, Nathan Addis nathan.addis@zfree.co.nz

A shocker Thank you for a gi’eat publication.

With regard to V8 Supercars , I have been wondering what are the rule requirements in relation to shock absorbers.

In my 36 years. I’ve seen a fair bit of motorsport. Every Australian GP. Nigel Mansell at full noise at the 1985 British GP. At the 1990 Belgian GP I was lucky enough to get a seat at Eau Rouge.

To this day, nothing comes close to seeing Ayrton Senna go left-right-left with pedal flat to the floor. Same place ten years later, Schumacher was doing the same thing.

But thanks to Ferrari in Austria I have lost all faith in FI. I will not support a team (a team based solely around one person) that treats the sport and its fans with such contempt.

After much phoning round to get Ferrari’s mailing address, I posted back my most prized possesion: A personally signed flag by Alain Prost and Jean Alesi, along with a stern letter. I hope they get the message.

DC Jones Elizabeth East, SA

Bring on Big Brother Thankyou for the small piece on TEGA’s V8 control ECU (MN#230).

I for one do wonder how much ‘technical brinkmanship’is going on. Who’s monitoring it? Can it be monitored?

After watching the round up here in Darwin and seeing Skaife achieve perfect starts (he’s a notorius bad starter) in all races, you have to wonder what’s going on.

I’d like to see an investigative journalist do a thorough investigation on this. In V8 Supercars, the stakes are so high now that you can’t rely on teams to act on ‘gentlemans agreement’ principles.

THansen CMA Berry Springs, NT T

Familiar sight: HRT’s current grip on the V8 Supercar series is wearing thin with some fans.

(Photo by Dirk Klynsmith) motorsport news

Perkins Engineering Castro!

VX Commodore 2002 - Ingall

Glen Seton Racing AU Falcon 2002 - Seton

The all new year 2002 1:43 scale Ford and Holden V8 Supercars have exact ‘precision’ detailing both inside and out.

Limited Editions and Fully Licensed.

The Precision VS Replicas are to be released in June 2002, and are recommended to sell at a retail price of AU$37.50.

SOimmiN MODEL SUPPLIES

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Trade enquiries: ph 08 8276 7722

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